Finally we are going to Madrid

Getting up at 5 am again we were so glad to get a ride to the Airport for 6 am check in. We had a 6 -hour flight to Bogota and then a 10 -hour flight to Madrid.

This got us into Spain at 7 am! There are fixed price taxis from the airport into the city at 30 Euros. We arrived to the hotel at 8 am and dropped off our luggage. We had 4 hours to kill before check in and the first 2 were painful. The last 2 were much better once we fueled up on coffee and breakfast.

After a 4-hour power nap we wandered around in this very beautiful city up the Gran Villa and to the Plaza del Sol. This is one of the best known and most visited places in Madrid. This is the km zero and center of the radial network of Spanish roads. Here is the Peurta del Sol or sun gate in the city wall surrounding Madrid in the 15 Th century. There is a Statue of King Carlos III on horse back in the center. Here you will also find the most famous symbol of Madrid, which is a statue of a bear eating from an Arbutus tree. The legend is that the cities original name was Ursaria (land of bears) because of the large numbers of them found in the Arbutus forests nearby. Also here are a huge number of people with crazy costumes who want you to pay them to get a photo with them.

We continued walking down towards the Plaza Mayor and past shops selling sweets, baked goods, and all kinds of deli items. Thinking of you Marcin! The square itself is large, but entered thru one of 9 small arched gates. The bronze statue in the center is King Phillip III.

We walked back to the Gran Villa and down to the Plaza Espana.

Near by is a great spot for the sun set at the Temple of Debod. This is an ancient Egyptian temple donated to Spain because they assisted with the movement of a number of UNESCO sites threatened by the flooding caused by the construction of the Aswan Dam in 1960. It is in a park overlooking the royal palace.

Joe this is for you….here is Europe safety first.

Today we are still a bit jet lagged, so we decided a good long walk.

This eventually took us to the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, which is free on Monday afternoons. This 1600 work collection was once the private holding of Heinrich, Baron Thyssen-Bornemisza de Kaszon!! He began this in the 1920 and he profited from the American depression when US millionaires had to sell many great works by the likes of Rembrandt, Homer, Monet, Pissarro, Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Van Gogh.

There were some very ancient works too.

1290

1320

From here we wandered down to the Mercado of Saint Miguel and the nearby Basilica of the same name. On your way here are many shops where you can stand at the counter with the locals and can get a meat sandwich and a glass of beer for 2 Euros.

We finished the day off with a visit to the Cathedral of Saint Mary the Royal of La Almudena. It was built in 1879 on the site of a mosque that was ruined in 1083 when Madrid was reconqured by Alfonso VI.