Madrid – Thursday


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We’ve been here a week now. It’s been a lot of fun so far. The hotel room is situated such that it’s pretty late in the morning before the sun lights up the room. On several occasions it’s seemed that it should be around 6:00 am and it ended up being 9:30. Thank goodness we’re not on a rigid schedule. This is a vacation after all!

This morning we actually got up around 7:00 since we had gone to bed relatively early last night. Checking the balcony and looking down the street we were able to tell this was going to be a glorious sunny day.

After breakfast we headed out to go see the Egyptian Temple of Debod because you just don’t turn down an opportunity to see a 2000 year old Egyptian temple in person, especially with things as tense as they are in the Middle East right now.

There was plenty to see as we made our way to the temple. Right off the bat I noticed this statue of an angel standing on it’s head…


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*edit* we discovered later that his was a privatlely owned sculpture of Icarus and that it belongs to the sculptor who made it and that is his private residence.

Just a bit further down the road we came to the Royal Palace of Madrid


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Then William had to get in on the act…


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—
Tip: It’s always good to visit sites like this early in the morning. You beat the throngs of tourists and get a better view of the thing your going to see…
—

We walked on down the side of the palace and headed to the park


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Cynthia and William got to ham it up with the local constabulary…

Before long we reached our destination, The Egyptian Temple of Debod


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After that we hiked back to the Puerto Del Sol for some lunch and then headed back to the hotel room for a nice long siesta, but not before spotting an “old friend” at Kilometer Zero…


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Mucky Duck


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A black swan (also known as a “mucky duck”) gives me the evil eye in Madrid…

Madrid – Wednesday


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After dropping off the laundry at the laundromat and the broken glasses off at Corte Ingles we headed off to the Thyssen Museum to complete the Madrid art museum triumvirate which began with our visits to The Prado and The Reina Sofia.

Some call this the “”Golden Triangle of Art” but to me The Golden Triangle will always be the area of Southeast Texas between the cities of Beaumont, Port Arthur, and Orange which was immortalized in the song of the same name by the Austin Lounge Lizards on their album Creatures From the Black Saloon.

This museum houses a collection of art that originally started as a private collection by the late Baron Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza.

Some have described this collection as having many lesser works by the great masters and greater works by the lesser known.

It is a wonderful gallery and an excellent collection. The museum was not overly crowded and was a very pleasant place to while away a few hours.

When we emerged from the gallery the sun was shining brightly and we were a hop skip and a jump from Retiro Park so we decided to head over there to see if we could capture some of the highlights in the sun light.

I’m glad we did!

Monument to Alfonso XII


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William The Sheep had to have his picture taken in front of the monument…


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The Crystal Palace


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The Fuente de Alcachofa (Artichoke Fountain)

We left the park and caught The Metro to pick up our laundry. When we arrived at the laundromat there was a bit of a commotion.

There was a film crew in the laundromat filming a scene for their movie. Either that, or it was a Spanish documentary on the horror of well worn tourist socks and underwear…

We had to wait a bit to collect our laundry, but before long we were back on The Metro and headed for home (the hotel).

Once we dropped off our things we headed out to the local Museo de Jamon to purchase some ham and bread to take back to the room for sandwiches.

After we had sated our hunger we determined that we’d had enough and called it a day.

—

BTW, Cynthia has really enjoyed the comments that you guys have been making to these posts. Keep ’em coming!

Warning


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Cynthia quote:

“The irony is that you are standing there taking a picture of a sign that says it’s dangerous to be standing there”.

Mala Suerte Con Los Lentes


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We got up this morning to drop some laundry off at a nearby laundromat. We decided it was worth the few extra euros to have them do it for us rather than sit there for the few hours it would take to do it ourselves.

It’s been raining this morning so we made our way to the local Starbucks for shelter and coffee and a chance to review our rainy day options.

I took the opportunity to see if I could clean my glasses and I guess I was a tad bit more vigorous than was prudent as I suddenly found myself holding only half of my glasses in one hand as the other half clattered across the table top…

There’s no amount of nerdly electrical tape in the world that’s going to patch this geek’s glasses back together.

Cynthia suggested we head over to the Cortes Ingles optical department where she had purchased her contact lens solution previously and see if they might be able to repair them.

They said it would be no problem, but they would need to send them off to be repaired and we would have them back in three days. With any luck I will have them back on Saturday or, worst case, I will get them when we return to Madrid at the end of the month.

Once again Cynthia’s Spanish language skills have saved the day.

Fortunately for me, I decided to carry my extra pair of glasses just in case of emergency…

Holy Toledo – addendum


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I’ve visited some of the greatest cathedrals in Europe and they all have their fair share of votive candles. I even lit a candle for my mother while in Notre Dame during our visit to Paris a few years back.

While visiting the cathedral in Toledo I was struck by a significant difference between their votive candles and all the ones I’ve seen previously in my life…


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They’re electric lights. You put your offering in the slot, say a prayer, push a button and a light comes on….

What’s the world coming to?

Holy Toledo!


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Today was the day we slated for going to Toledo. It’s about 45 miles away and it’s only 30 minutes via the high speed Ave train which leaves from Atocha Station.

You might recognize the name as it is the location of the al-Qaeda lead train bombings that occurred on March 11th 2004.

In Spain they use 3-11 or 11-M the same way we use 9/11 in the US to describe the day the World Trade Center was attacked and destroyed.

This train station is truly something to behold. The most breathtaking feature is the winter garden that sits in the middle of the station.


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The garden is bordered by a lily pond, replete with turtles and everything!

Cynthia’s Spanish again served us well as we purchased our tickets. I don’t know if we could have pulled that off nearly as easily as we did if she didn’t speak the language.

We boarded the train and in no time at all we were pulling into the station in Toledo.

Rick Steves had indicated in his travel guide that it was a 30 minute walk to the city entrance or you could catch a cab from the station for a few euros. What he did not mention is that there are far fewer cabs than there are people needing them at the station. There must have been 50 people or more waiting in a cab line and I only saw 2 or 3 cabs trickle in before I decided we should walk.

Now keep in mind that Toledo is a walled medieval city on the top of a HUGE hill.


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We walked toward the city, not really knowing where to go and we found an old arched entrance in one of the walls.

As it turned out, this was some kind of “back entrance” to the city. We were greeted by a very steep climb up to the city center of Toledo. Neither of us was all that happy by the time we found our way to the top. We knew there must be an easier way and there is, we just didn’t end up taking it.

Once we caught our breath we set out to explore this incredible city.

The most impressive structure within the well preserved walls of Toledo is the Cathedral of St. Mary.

We made our way down the winding street to the entrance to the church and went inside.

Like many cathedrals, photography is allowed as long as it is without a flash. That is where my high speed lens came in handy and I was able to shoot some pics inside and actually walk away with something worth looking at.


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Gorgeous statues everywhere you look. This one was located on a very dimly lit wall. It was all I could do to hold the camera steady during the 1/5 of a second exposure time needed to get it.

Thank you built in image stabilization!

After we toured the cathedral we jumped on the cheezy mini-train that trundles around the city and took in the rest of the sites. This allowed me to capture a few more worthy shots of the city


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After that Cynthia and I walked down and out (the easy way) and headed back to the train station for our return to Madrid.


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Once back in Madrid we activated our rail passes and made our reservations for the train ride to Seville this Sunday.

Retiro Park


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Check out this page for all my photos of Retiro Park.


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Yesterday afternoon we decided to head over to Retiro Park. It was threatening rain but we wanted to see it while we had the chance.

Retiro Park is is to Madrid what Central Park is to New York.

Even on an overcast day this place is spectacular. Sculpted gardens and magnificent fountains adorn this 350 acre park in the city center of Madrid.

We didn’t see much wildlife. No obvious squirrels or other critters. We did see many Magpies, though


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I wish we had Magpies back home.

As the weather began to get worse we made our way to the one “must see” attraction in the park, and that’s the Fountain of the Fallen Angel.

The sculpture at the top is a work by Ricardo Bellver (1845″“1924) which represents Lucifer falling from Heaven.

I’m certainly no devil-worshipper, but how can one resist going to see a statue of the devil in a public park?


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