Madrid
We stayed at an H10 hotel on Gran Via,
one of the
main streets which gave us a cool perspective from our balcony.
Down the street is the
Plaza de Cibeles,
with
a beautiful building- the
old post office and Mayor's office. A famous fountain is in the plaza,
the fountain of Cybele, who is the Phrygian goddess of fertility, on a
chariot pulled by two lions. The
Prado Museum
is just south of here.
We wandered around and headed toward the
Puerta del Sol,
a
square (under construction so no interesting pictures) which is the
"zero point" for distance measurement within Spain. Nearby we
come across the
Museo
de Jamon, or Museum of ham. It's essentially a tapas bar
coupled with a market. We're big fans of the spiced, cured meats,
and Spain has that in plenty. Unfortunately you can't bring the ham
into the US, but you can eat it there...
So we did, many varieties. Oh, so good. At this restaurant,
La Taverna La Fragua de Vulcan,
a person cut it off the shank in front of you, slowly and carefully,
almost religiously.
On our way to the Metro to go to a bullfight, we walked through a large
park- the
Parque
Del
Retiro. Huge and immaculately maintained, it was a very
popular place on this beautiful Sunday in May.
This lake is part of the park.
Taking the Metro to the bullfight. It's well organized and clean.
The bullfight is
covered
separately. On another day we went to the Prado, where you
are
not supposed to take pictures, but which is well documented on
their website and
Wikipedia.
In researching our trip, I found that one of my favorite works is
there, the
Garden
of
Earthly Delights, by Hieronymus Bosch. I was thrilled to
be able to see it up close:
We enjoyed our two full days in Madrid, but we wanted to spend more
time in Barcelona on this trip, which is why this is sort of
short.