Day 24: Madrid

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Short and sweet today. We spent the day doing the usual touristy things around Madrid – we’re basically trying to really spread things out since we’re in Madrid for forever haha.

We walked down towards the Royal Palace, taking photos along the way at the Opera House, the fountains and such. The Palace is apparently the largest royal one in all of Europe (so the tour guy said the other day) – I do have to admit, it looks quite nice. We also went to see the Cathedral and slowly wandered back towards Plaza Mayor. This time around we noticed that the lamp posts had a bunch of locks locked on them - aw, the newlywed custom. I love it.

We went to a tavern (keep in mind, it’s like 1pm at this point!) to try the liquor of Madrid! They give you a wafer dipped in chocolate and put the strawberry liquor in it – it tastes really good, and you get a snack with it too as you eat the glass afterwards! Bonus!

Next up was the Mercado – we went to just walk around and see a bunch of different foods, tapas, drinks etc. We were told it’s not a place to go when you’re hungry because you’ll spend a fortune, so we really just went to look around. I did give in though – I keep seeing squid things everywhere, and they had baby squid croquettes... for 1 euro. I had to try. So I did. They were... odd? But good. I think. Undecided.

From there we went back up to Sol, where I had to practice my Canadian politeness while a bunch of people kept cutting in the “line” to take pictures with the bear and the strawberry tree... ahem.

We then walked up towards Retiro Park where we spent the afternoon. On the way we came across a small demonstration, but it was relatively far away and quite peaceful.

The Park was really nice – we roamed around for a bit, looking at the pond (all the row boats!) and all that. We then spent about two hours just lounging on the grass (Em half in the sun, me fully in the shade!) while reading our books/I catnapped and wrote a bit in my journal book. After that we continued walking along the park, heading south and came across this palace thing (ugly, too many signs) and this glass-house modern art museum thing... that made no sense whatsoever haha. Oh well.

Very lovely afternoon indeed – I like the big parks in the city.

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