| Fountain of Neptune located in a main round-about near the major museums. |
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| Glenn's Madrid Journals 06-17-02 It's Monday morning and we are both ready to move on from Madrid and find a quieter, cooler place to spend the remaining week before we head back to Milano. Actually we have plans to spend the extended weekend in Como at our new friends place. We expect this to be just as relaxing and enjoyable, if not more so, than what we do the rest of this week. We need to end thte trip on a more relaxing note so we at least feel like we have been on vacation upon our return next week to the States. The plan was to catch the 10:45 pm train to San Sebastian but we hadn't made reservations yet so this was not yet confirmed. This was the first order of business today so I headed out to the train station while Erin stayed in to finsh packing. It was after 10:00 am and I had to be back by noon for checkout so I had to rush to the train station. You never kow how long the queues are going to be!!! The walk was only 15 minutes and the queues only lasted 10 minutes before I had the tickets that we wanted for the night train. I returned to the room, only after stopping to buy danish for breakfast, and we checked out just before noon. We were able to leave our backpacks at the hostal until 8:00 pm that night so we could still spend the day seeing the sites without the worry of a heavy load. The sites to see today included the Palacio Real (Royal Palace) and "Playing with Fire", an photography exhibit at the Palacio De Velazquez in Parque e Retiro. On our chores list we still had to find an internet cafe that could download pur photos to a CD. We had only 9 photos left on our second smart media card and had not taken many phots in Madrid much less what we would take during our last week and a half. We would stop into internet cafes as we walked to each of the sites. Our first stop was the Palacio Real. On the way there we passed through the Plaza Mayor where we stopped to take some photos. Once at the Palacio Real we purchased tickets for a guided tour (cheaper than the audioguides) through the main section of the Palacio. The Palacio Real is an Italian baroque colossus with some 200 rooms, of which we visited less than 30 rooms. We entered through the main stairways which, as you can imagine in a 200 room palace, are extraordinarily extravagant. We were led through the Halberdier's room (Military room) and on to the Throne room with it's crimson velvet wall coverings, beautiful fresco ceiling, and many statues that make the room as magnificent as you would expect. We then entered the Salon de Gasparini with an amazing stucco ceiling (as the photo shows) and the embroidered silk wall coverings. The Comedor De Gala (Gala Dining Room) built for a king enjoyed seating at the one dining room table for 144 people. (Can you imagine!!!) The more than a dozen chandeliers surrounded by additional silk wall coverings, statues, and vases made the dining room seem huge. The room next door of course was where the musicians played before and after dinner. The tour lasted about an hour but had moved through each room pretty quickly so we walked back through the rooms at our own pace so we could enjoy each room more intimately. Upon completion of the Palacio Real we visited the Armeria Real (Royal Armoury) and the Farmacio Real (Royal Pharmacy). The Armoury displayed weapons and armour from the 16th and 17th centuries. The armour included full suits for Felipe III and horse armour. Erin and I both enjoyed this section of the visit. We walked through the pharmacy but unless you get excited about real old bottles and containers then there was not much to take in. (Continued on next page) |