Gira a Castilla: Madrid!

The last couple days of our trip were spent in the capital of this amazing country: Madrid.

The first night that we arrived, we had nothing to do other than wander around half the city in search of cheap pizza just to finally decide on kebabs from the place almost directly in front of our hotel. The next day was spent outside of Madrid rather than inside of it. Our first stop was at the Escorial, palace/monastery/cathedral/private school all rolled into one.

Originally built for Felipe II, he spent half of his ruling time in Madrid in a normal palace and the other half in the Escorial, living in three tiny, bare rooms, basically coming as close to a monk as a ruling king can. The building complex itself was more or less what you would expect from Spanish architecture, so nothing new there. However, two really cool aspects of the Escorial are the library and the crypt. The libary is like most others expect that all of the books are shelved so that the pages rather than the binding are showing. Kind of odd and I don't remember the explanation, but it was neat to see all the shiny golden-edged pages facing out. Another great aspect of the library was the ceiling, which had paintings of all the different academic and philosophic areas. And yes, I will admit that I'm enough of a math nerd that I was double checking their addition in the painted equations.

The crypt at the Escorial holds the bodies of almost all the monarchs and their spouses since Carlos V. The coffins are arranged in such a manner so that the monarchs are on one side of the room and the spouses are on the other. Isabel II is the only woman to be buried on the monarchs' side, with her husband Francisco de Asis being the only man on the spouses' side. The royal bodies aren't placed immediately in the crypt but rather are placed in a "rotting room" first for fifty years to deteriorate down to the bones and lose their smell before going into the ornate crypt. All the spots left are now taken up by bodies still in the rotting room, which means that the currently living Spanish royalty have to decide where they want to be buried.

After the Escorial, we drove out to "El Valle de los Caídos." *

This monument is out in the middle of the mountains and is a memorial/burial ground for troops who fell during the Civil War. Commissioned by Franco, after it was finished, he decided that he too wanted to be buried there and thus, he is.

By far my favorite cathedral in Spain, the monument has a huge 100m high stone cross outside and a cathedral carved into the mountain. With huge soaring stone vaulted ceilings and enormous creepy statues of archangels (which look more like fallen angels to me), the cathedral doesn't really feel like a church.

It makes me think more of a pagan worshipping place that the dwarves in Middle Earth might have constructed for themselves inside the Mines of Moria. Creepy, but a very, very cool creepy.

After we got back to Madrid, we all went out to eat at the Hard Rock Cafe for Erin's birthday.

Quite the undertaking considering the first time the bus we needed came by the bus stop, it didn't stop for us and the restaurant apparently doesn't normally do reservations and the tables weren't set up for a group when we arrived.

However, a good time was still had by all and I had some AMAZING (expensive, but amazing) American food. Mmmmm... yay for Caesar salad and Spinach & Artichoke dip with real tortilla chips that weren't stale. And on the way back from the restaurant, we had a lesson in statistics and that pedestrians are NOT almighty.

Our next full day in Madrid started with a walking tour of the city, passing by the Prado, numerous plazas with fountains, arches, the Plaza de Sol (that's Madrid's city symbol in the background, the bear and the tree),

where Kilometer 0 is located (starting measuring point of all highways in Spain),

the Plaza Mayor,

and the shopping districts. We had lots of free time before meeting up again in the afternoon for a tour of the Prado. During that wandering, not only did Brittany and I find a couple different yarn stores and buy yarn to make a baby set for an American ACA couple here who left early after 2nd semester who couldn't go to Madrid because she got pregnant and was having morning sickness problems (Brittany knit the hat and I knit the booties and did the eyes and feather poof on the hat),

but we also found a used antique bookstore where we spent a good hour. Although I don't have a picture and really wish I did, I found a book in the store that had been written by an "Eugenio Noel." Maybe we do have Spanish relations. Who knows? Another fun shop that I found was this one. It's a good thing that Jacque got married to who she did because now we have a name for that fifth J.

The Prado is a really good museum and the most important in Spain, but I would have enjoyed it more if the tour hadn't been in the afternoon and my feet hadn't been killing me and if I could have taken pictures like in the Louvre. As such, I didn't take advantage of the extra time after the tour to look around more on my own, but since I'll be back to Spain someday, it doesn't really matter, right?

Our last day in Spain only had one scheduled visit - the Palacio Real. However, before heading off with the school, I got up a little early to walk/jog over to the main city park to see the Crystal Palace. Although it was cloudy and crappy weather, the palace was still really pretty and I would totally want to get married there if I lived in Madrid or anywhere close.

After that was the Palacio Real. This Palace isn't the residence of the current kings (although past kings have lived there), but rather is a museum when it's not being used to State functions and such. Apparently the school had only paid for us to visit the Armoury and the Farmacy musuems, but not knowing that, Sasha, Brittany, Amanda (friend from the States who's SMing in Madrid), and I bluffed our way into the actual palace with the permission of the guard to look really quick for our teacher to find out what was going on. Of course, we ended up going through the whole palace at a leisurely touring pace, but I will say that I kept my eyes open for Chelo the entire time.

After the palace, it was more free time to shop and walk around Madrid on our own before loading up the bus and beginning the 4-5 hour trip back. All in all a good tour. Except that I never could find just the right black boots to buy. *sigh*

*pictures of the interior of el valle de los caidos are taken from a random website because we weren't supposed to take pictures inside and i was too lazy to try to be sneaky with my camera.