Madrid the Castle

Today I decided to go see the Palace Real.   It was a good choice, I did like it and if you're in Madrid it's worth the couple of hours to go see it.    I left here at about 8:15 a.m., stopped and had a coffee and some toast on the way.   I just took my time walking there thinking they would open at 9 .   Oh yay,  I am wrong again it doesn't open until 10.     This first picture is the Cathedral across from the Palace.



And this is the Palace.

So with time to kill I went across the street to the park.   I called  it pigeon park, bet you can't guess why

There had to be 25 to 30 of these statues or pigeon roosts

I have heard of some of these people the statue were representing

This was one of the bigger ones, something to do with world war one

And like any big city they have the park dwellers

I put in a few of these

I think she was their Queen at one point in history

And a few more homeless.   The police didn't even bother them, they walked right by them

I go for a coffee and this guy sits down and we have a bit of a conversation.   His English wasn't the best and my Spanish is bad, but we did manage to communicate.   I asked him if he has met the new Pope I say I think his name is Frances. (I still don't know if that's his name) Anyways he gets up and says come here and takes me to show me a picture of him and the Pope

This is the name of the coffee shop I was in

And this is the picture he shows me.  Neat,  if that's the Pope.... I have no idea

So after a bit I leave there and head back to the Palace and look at the guards.  They had on those metal hats and this guy didn't care if you took his picture.

After sitting around for another 10 minutes I finally get in

This is a picture of the Cathedral from the Palace

And of course there are no cameras allowed so these are not the best pictures, most are of the ceilings. But I did get some and only got told off once.

The way these people lived was amazing

So much elegance.

All the rooms were decorated by famous people and all the ceiling's by famous artists

This chandelier weighed over a ton

One of the hall ways

The chapel.   It had more gold then the Cathedral

The view they had

Then went to the artillery room.   I spent more time here than the castle.   It was amazing how much they had.

Some of the old crossbows

They had at least a dozen horses in here with full metal armor

It was just amazing how much they had

Even had old canon type of guns. They had full armor for their children. Swords and lances, they even had body armor that kings had worn to battle. They even had leather shields from back in the 15th century. It is a great display I sure wish I could have taken more pictures but those security guards were just every place.

After that I went to the Cathedral.  It is huge

And it looks a lot newer than I was expecting

Had some nice stained glass

Then I went to this building I thought was a market, but wrong again.   It was a place with dozen of  Tapas bars

You could get any kind of tapas you could think of here

They even had oysters 7 for 10E or 10 for 15E. I thought that sounded cheap ( well Bernita, is it?? )

I only had 2 cheese tapas

It was hard to pick

I sure was tempted with the sweets.

Then I went from there to the Ham Museum and had a ham and cheese croissant and that's a sprite 

These pictures are for Leo. Some guitar place

They said they made them here but who knows

This is the name and it's their 100th anniversary

I had to show this police van, there are more of these than cars. See the screens over the front windows? They sure must have a lot of protesters here

I was heading to Plaza los Ventas when I saw this up another street, so I headed there to see what it was.    I still don't know what it was but it's in the center of another traffic circle.

Then I see the park across from it so I go there.  This park is huge.    Looking straight ahead there is a fountain about a half a kilometer away

This is the fountain after this, it's about the same distance to the lake.

You could rent row boats and paddle around

Across the lake they have a monument

I zoomed in but didn't go there.  Later this afternoon I am going back to see more of this park

After the lake another fountain, and the trail kept going but I turned towards where I thought I was staying.

And I came to this manicured garden

I just loved these trees

I got carried away taking pictures of them

Aren't they neat?  Imagine the work to keep them trimmed

I ended up at the Prado, so I got a chance to listen to my Sax player

I went in a store that sells the armor and swords

I kept thinking who buys this stuff?   Then this woman asked if I speak English.   She wanted me to translate to Spanish for her.  That was a no go.  But I  said what did she need, and she says she has a dozen or more swords at home and wanted to know how to hang them on the wall.   So with my great Spanish I told the guy what she wanted. I am great at sign language because he understood me and went and got her some different hooks and showed her how to do it.   She thanked me and I left. So I guess women buy swords. 

These were chess pieces how cool.   Trent would have loved these!