Madrid - Pomp and Ceremony, a Cathedral and a Palace

First stop today was the Palacio Real or Royal Palace where we had got lucky again. The Changing of the Guard with full pomp and ceremony is only held on nine occasions throughout the year and today was one of those. Arriving early we secured a spot at the fence which gave us a perfect view to the courtyard of the palace and a  rear view from the approach between the cathedral and the palace. Great uniforms and a variety of horse breeds, a huge marching band which did formation work, soldiers who marched in formation patterns and also performed manoeuvres with their rifles and bayonets, and some solid work horses pulling military carts. As the commentary was in Spanish I cannot do more than present some photos for you to look at. 

Having stood in the sun for more than two hours, we headed for the cool of the Cathedral of the Almudena next door. This church is celebrating its 25th anniversary which is a strange thing for Europe where everything is many hundreds of years old. Of course, it does have older foundations. 

This was one case of reviews being not always to be believed. I had read ' attractive on the outside but nothing to see inside.'  What a good thing I decided to see for myself! It is certainly different but in keeping with its age we felt that it gave a contemporary view of Christianity, and also gave modern religious artists an opportunity to present their work. Surprisingly, we found it most satisfying.

The next church where we hoped to see frescoes by Goya was closed so we headed back to a shady spot we'd  seen and tried a local favourite - calamari in a roll.

Rested, fed and watered, we went back to the a Royal Palace to tour the treasures on show. This palace has well over 1000 rooms and is only used on special occasions now. The king lives elsewhere. The decoration of the rooms is stunning but the thing that won us was the amazing collection of huge chandeliers. Photos were not permitted in most areas but I did get two chandeliers to include in this post.

Back to our apartment for a short rest before we went out for a tapas tour. That is the subject of the next blog post.

Madrid - an introduction

The On-Off bus is an excellent introduction to any city, and the older we get the more we appreciate this. So by 8.30 am we were on our way to stop 1. The architecture in Madrid is stunning, one could go on photographing beautiful buildings all day, but I will just show you a few.

Not only is the architecture stunning but there are many beautiful large fountains and the gardens are a blaze of well maintained colour.

There is much to please the artistic eye in Madrid. These street signs being one great example.

How about this for a Spanish word?

Finally it was time for some energy food so what better than the popular Spanish churros with chocolate. For this you go to a chocolateria!

The Bear and the Strawberry Tree is the emblem of Madrid. 

With some walking and more difficulty we eventually found the Market of San Miguel. This beautiful old market building has been restored into one huge tapas bar. Being still amateurs at the tapa business we were stunned by the huge variety of tapas for 1 or 2 euros per piece.

Then we had the difficult decision of deciding what to buy. On the left, a stuffed mushroom on grilled sweet capsicum, on a bread base. On the right, a chicken morsel so tasty that you wanted a plate full.

By now it was mid afternoon and time for all Spaniards ( and some mature tourists ) to have a siesta. Actually, I call it blog time!

Later we set off for Buen Retiro Park but got side-tracked by the church of San Jeronimos El Real where they have many paintings from the 1600s. Spanish art is a new thing for us so the names are not familiar. Carducci and Mendez are the notable artists. The photo shows an incredible wall of more modern art, so big that you had to stand on the other side of the church to view it.

From there we found ourselves at the Botanical Gardens, which luckily are free to enter after 5 pm on Tuesdays. Despite being given a good wrap for their scientific works, we found the experience rather weird, many empty beds and many that looked like they were cultivating weeds. I don't  mean lots of weeds, I mean actually growing them.

One interesting feature was the 'insect hotel', a collection of interesting nook and crannies that attract insects to breed.

Time for a cold beer and a mojito before getting to the On-Off bus for a night ride to look at lights. Alas it wasn't dark enough to see any lights. It isn't  dark here until after 10 pm.

Salud!

Travelling, it leaves you speechless ...

This year's travel journal (the old fashioned paper sort) opens with the quote from Ibn Battuta, Moroccan adventurer and traveller ... " Travelling, it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller." 
Daily blogs and other electronic media don't allow enough time for real storytelling even if I had that ability. However I hope you will enjoy my photos and travel snippets over the coming months.

This year we decided to do something different with flights. They say Variety is the Spice of Life, and it has turned out that way for us. We decided to fly to Europe via Japan and what a bonus that was. Our very first upgrade! Although it was a night flight,  all that extra space was wonderful. Thanks JAL, I slept like a baby all night.

From Tokyo we flew with Iberia to Madrid and were lucky enough to both get window seats with a spare seat beside us.

It wasn't  long after leaving Japan that we started the long crossing over Russia and eventually Scandinavia. What a lot of flat barren land there is in this world. Glimpses of snow on the steppes added to the interest for us.

We arrived in Madrid ahead of time, made a seamless transfer to our apartment, and immediately went out to check out our home area for the next eight nights.

First reactions are that Madrid is impressive, architecturally stunning and charming. Our apartment in Huertas is everything we could hope for, and more!