Me Gusta Madrid

Our latest and greatest adventure so far was a long weekend in Madrid. We had some great suggestions from friends (how many trips do I need to take Rick Steeves on before he's considered a friend?) on things to do, places to eat, and places to siesta. We took in a bullfight, a traditional flamenco dance, did a tapas bar crawl (were we repeatedly ran into two other groups... also friends of Rick Steeves) and spent some quality time siesta-ing.

The matador below is in a typical outfit- very masculine! They all wear pink socks and ballet flats, but the suit itself varies.

I will spare the weaker readers of my wonderful blog the more gruesome photos of the bullfight- you couldn't help but feel bad for the bulls. They looked confused, and only charged when taunted with the pink and red capes. The matador's assistant would stab things into their backs, and then a man on a horse would come out and shove a spear into the backs of their necks, which in turn would make the bull head-butt the poor horses which you also end up feeling bad for. We saw a horse get knocked down by the bull and land on the rider, but all the assistant matadors came rushing out to distract the bull and get the horse and rider up. The bulls weren't nearly as aggressive as I had thought they would be, and it seems inhumane. At least the meat does get sold to market, so I guess some spectators would say its just playing with your food.

This is outside the Plaza de Toros

This is a nice little lake in the middle of the main park in Madrid, Retirio Park where we rented row boats and rowed around. There is lots of people watching and just sitting around, which is nice and relaxing when on vacation!

This is the Spanish Royal Palace. It is supposedly in the top three along with Schonbrunn in Vienna and Versailles- having been to all three I would chose to live at one of the others (as long as I could go somewhere else to live in the winter)! It is still used today for the Royals to hold dinners and events, but they live somewhere else.

This is one section of the Plaza Mayor. It is a very old square that has long buildings such as this on all four sides.

... just a pretty balcony with potted plants

A Spanish street

This is in the Plaza de Sol- the zero kilometer point/ exact center of Spain.

Another view of the Plaza Mayor

This is the view of the Plaza de Sol from our hotel balcony. It was great to be able to take a rest in our hotel while still experiencing Madrid's culture. There were tons of people hanging around the plaza, and there was a large mariachi band that played in the afternoons.

I'm not sure the significance of this statue, but its a symbol of Madrid and was in the Plaza de Sol.

And a final picture of us at the lake to prove we were there and didn't just steal someone else's photos off the internet and pass them off as our own :)