August 2006
Madrid, Spain
From 25 to 27 August 2006 we visited Madrid in Spain, to celebrate Arthur's 30th birthday. We visited the Palacio Real, Museo del Prado, Plaza Mayor, El Rastro and some very nice parks.
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1/23 We landed at Madrid airport at 9:30am on Friday 25 August and took the metro into the city.
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2/23 Amy had picked a very nice hotel in downtown Madrid near Plaza de la Puerta del Sol, Hostal Adriana. This was the view of our little balcony.
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3/23 The street signs in Madrid are often made of nine beautifully painted titles like this.
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4/23 In the morning we decided to get the Madrid Vision hop-on-hop-off tourist bus that goes around the city along all the important sights.
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5/23 The top of the double-decker Madrid Vision busses is open, and you get ear buds that you can plug in near your seat to listen to commentary. There are two routes of about 75 minutes each, and they were very nice.
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7/23 Puerta de Europa are two modern office buildings of 115 meters tall and inclined 15
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8/23 In the afternoon we had a visit at Parque del Buen Retiro, a beautifully laid out park. We were very impressed by all all the different areas, and we stopped a few times to feed popcorn to sparrows.
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9/23 Inside the park were several lakes, including this one with a huge fountain.
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10/23 On Saturday morning we walked west from Puerta del Sol toward the palace and stopped at Plaza Mayor, Madrid's most famous square.
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11/23 First we visited the Se
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12/23 After the cathedral we got in line at the Palacio Real, where it was very crowded. After waiting 30 minutes in the 35
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13/23 We got the audioguide and had a great visit of this fabulous palace, which was inspired by Bernini's designs for the Louvre in Paris.
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14/23 More than half of the state apartments are open to the public, each decorated with silk hangings, frescoes and gilded stucco, and crammed with priceless objets d'art.
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15/23 After the palace we walked to the other side of downtown Madrid and visited the Museo del Prado. This is a painting by El Greco.
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16/23 That evening we had tapas dinner at a terrace at Majaderitos Caf
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17/23 On Sunday morning we walked to Puerta del Sol, which is the heart of the city. In fact, this marker in front of the Case de Correos indicates 'kil
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18/23 We too the metro at Puerta del Sol toward the El Rastro.
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19/23 On Sunday the streets of the El Rastro area are filled with a colorful street market.
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20/23 After having a walk around the market we took the metro to Parque de la Montana, where we visited this Egyptian temple, which is one of four temples (one other one is in Leiden!) moved out of Egypt when the Aswan dam was built.
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21/23 We walked around the park and saw a few new birds, then took the Telef
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22/23 From the cable car we had a very nice view of the city and the Sierra de Guadarrama mountains in the distance
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23/23 After the park we took the metro back to the hotel, where we picked up our luggage and got to the airport for our 9:30pm flight back to Amsterdam.
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