The Garden of Earthly Delights

The following palace rooms were taken by Steve, forbidden photos. This was my favorite room, the Gasparini room or the king's dressing room

the dining room

Smoking room? I loved the Asian motifs. Not pictured is the Stradivarius room with 2 actual violins,  cello and a viola.  Only 300 instruments (1644-1737) survive and are worth more than 15 million a piece. Seems a shame to have these 4 locked up unplayed.

Carlos III himself. Goya became the court painter of his son and grandson. The palace contained plenty of Goyas

After the palace, a walk towards the city center down Calle Mayor stopping at a very nice gallery where I bought stuff and now wish I bought more

The indoor market off of the Plaza Mayor was so, so crowded. Steve could take this photo because he is tall and has long arms. You can see my old lady head in the foreground

Plaza Mayor, crowded beyond belief full of Xmas markets

Back tracked to the Plaza de Oriente for a Rick Steves suggested menu del dia at the Café del Oriente

Then back to Puerta del Sol full of living cartoon characters. Lots of pandas who grab kids and won't let them go until their parents pony up money for a photo

All the roads in Spain start here

El Prado where we spent hours. No photos allowed inside.

It was dark by the time we got out. A two mile walk through very crowded streets to our hotel

I loved the Beaux Artes buildings all around

This is a big chain of Ham stores. I always wanted to try it but Rick Steves said beware. Anyway, I got plenty of jamon at the breakfast buffets

Our hotel: nothing special but I liked it. Most of the day, the lobby served as a vermuteria. Apparently Vermouth bars are a thing now in Madrid. In the morning, a very good breakfast buffet. You make your own coffee with Nespresso machines

Now back to my photos

That glass market that was too crowded to walk more than a few feet in

interesting and pretty drinks though

Loved this bar's outside

my main course at our fancy lunch place. What I really should have taken a photo of was the fancy vegetable first course that included black potatoes (which I first thought were beets which I hate but I can tolerate potatoes) It was covered with moving brown things. Live sea creatures? On closer examination they  were  extremely thin crispy onions that moved from the heat currents. Never saw anything like it before. Dessert was sort of boring cream puffs

one of the many living statues t looked like he was peeing. Embiggen please

From Naomi's childhood nightmares

Lots of murals all around.

I awoke in a panic on our first whole day in Spain: 8:30! I had a whole day planned, which didn't involve sleeping through the limited daylight hours. From then on, alarms were set though I quickly adjusted to local times. But not much sleep was had in the preceding 36 hours. The luggage had come after we fell asleep and I had to get up to retrieve it. A cheerful woman in the elevator greeted me in Italian confusing me. When I first went to Italy I had prestudied the language was able to understand it easier than my more extensive Spanish lessons. In some ways (mainly easier grammar) Spanish is easier but still I can understand spoken Italian much  more readily.

The three different hotels all had great breakfasts. I will give myself a few more days before I have to courage to get on the scale though my clothes still fit, a good sign.

The palace I covered in my last posting. I had not seen it on my earlier visit but then on to places I have seen but Steve hasn't. One thing we missed was El Parque del Buon Retiro. It was too dark to go in. I had gone to Madrid before in February. Not the least bit crowded but as the many signs said

Todos cambia en natividad

Everything changes during Christmas time

On to Calle Mayor which would lead to Plaza Mayor. Lots of attractive government buildings on the way. I stopped at the first nice looking versus very tacky tourist places, gallery I found and bought things which I will picture some time later. I usually shop around more but this worked out as I didn't find the same things any place else. The  farmer's market was impossible to walk through as was Plaza Mayor. The usually empty Plaza Mayor was filled with Christmas stalls selling lots of furry unicorn hats for little girls. Every girl under 12 seemed to have one. And why weren't these kids in school? Must be breaktime.

Lunch time begins at 1:30 pm; dinner at 10 pm. This was more strictly enforced when we went there last time but now there are more options. We were not ever going to have an official dinner in a sit down restaurant but we could have a fancy lunch now and then. We back tracked to near the Palace for the recommended Café de Oriente. Another option are tapas places but they presume one drinks and Steve doesn't. 

On to El Prado, my second favorite museum in the world (musee d'Orsay in Paris being the first). It is huge! Also, last time I paid 3.01 euro; now 15 euro. Again, much more expensive along with our final subway ride that would have been .30/a person versus 7 euros a person because we went through 3 very tiny zones (Barcelona metro is much, much cheaper).

Favorite Room? El Bosco and his fantasy worlds of hell. Lots of Goya too. We wandered around for hours.  Donde la salida por favor?

The exit was a closely guarded secret. I would ask where it was and get a string of directions. They lost me at  Gira Izquierda.

A walk again on the very crowded Gran Via through las luces stopping at El Cortes Ingles for snacks that we never got around to eating. To Sevilla.