Madrid is Fabulous

Madrid is a really, really beautiful city. We have been metro-ing around and it is a really big city with beautiful parks, lots of squares with fountains and statues of men on horses.  We searched in vain Saturday morning for a tourist office - found one that was shut for renovations and another was closed because it was Saturday. We gave up eventually and just bought tickets on the hop-on, hop-off tourist bus. This is one of those double decker buses where the top is open.  It affords a fabulous view of the buildings as you go by and was a great way to see the city without wearing out our feet.

The building in the top left picture above is the ColonTowers.  Very strange looking.  The one in the top right corner was designed by the same person who designed the World Trade Centers.  The bottom two pictures are representative of the various 'gates' and fountains that are all over the city.

There are two major squares in Madrid (see below). The Plaza Mayor is the old plaza.  It was used for everything from bull fights to festivals and was the site of the famous Spanish Inconquisition.  We had dinner there twice as it is filled with outdoor cafes.  The second major square is the Puerto del Sol which is equivalent to Times Square in NY city.  We passed through there last night around midnight and it was hopping and packed full of people.

There is a lovely cathedral in Madrid which we went through.  It was NOT overly decorated and actually had modern art stained glass and a beautiful iron (?) door.  The ceilings were beautifully painted.

The cathedral is right across from the magnificent royal palace.  The royal family doesn't actually live there anymore but it is used extensively for special functions.  We went through it, but no photos were allowed.  It is reportedly the largest palace in western Europe with something like 2800 rooms.  We only saw about 40 of them.  The parade grounds in front of the palace are used each year for the king to review the troops.

The inside was amazing but hard to describe.  It was very baroque and over decroated with much gold guilding, dark tapestries, and every square inch of walls and ceilings covered with something - paintings, silken walkpaper, porcelain.  It was quite gaudy.

Attached to the palace was a royal armory (again no pictures) but it was incredible - two huge rooms of men and horses in full polished armor.  I've never seen anything like it.  It is hard to understand how they could move at all with all that stuff on.

Yesterday we took a very nice cable car ride over a huge park to the western side of the city.  (We do love to go on 'rides').

The city is filled with green spaces and open areas, making it very lovely.  On our way back to the tourist bus we walked through a lovely park which had some formal gardens and also had the remains of an Egyptian temple at the end of it.

Apparently Spanish engineers provided significant help to Egypt when they were building the Aswan Dam.  To thank them, Egypt gave them the remains of a temple that lay in the flood plain for the dam.  They packed  to up, sent it over to Spain and reconstructed it in this park.  Amazing stuff.

Every Sundays there is a huge flea market in the old part of the city.  It goes for blocks and is one of the largest in Europe.  They have been holding it for several hundred years, I think.  It was lots of clothes, jewelry, leather goods and souvenirs and was packed with people.  There was even an area where people were trading cards - soccer cards, maybe?

Today we also visited one of the many world-class art museums that are here.  I choose the Museo de Thyssen-Bornemisza because it had a good selection of art from Europe and America.  We only spent about an hour in there as it was nearly closing time but it was amazing to see all these famous painters I studied in art classes as a child: Van Gogh, Picasso, Degas, Monet, and a zillion others I can't recall off the top of my head.  Although we do not tend to linger in art museums, I have to admit I really enjoyed this one very much.

We wondered through the Retiro Park on our way home this afternoon.  It is the Madrid equivalent of Central Park and is filled with statutes, lawns, flower gardens, and has a big man-made lake in the middle where lots of people were rowling around.  The park was very well used.

We are both really glad we spent as much time in Madrid as we did.  It is an exceptionally beautiful city.  It reminded us quite a bit of Washington, but it is much larger and the buildings are more spectacular.