Advertisement
El Palacio Real
The Spanish Royal Palace The last day of the tour began with an early morning trip to the Spanish Royal Palace. For the past few days, Madrid had been abuzz with the excitement from the royal wedding of Prince Felipe. The wedding took place at the Catedral de la Almudena, adjacent to the Spanish Royal Palace. Now over a week since that historic wedding, here we were standing in the courtyard of where it all took place. Our tour of the Spanish Royal Palace was guided and with all guided tours, I quickly lost interest in what our guide was telling us. Inside, the palace was very much how I had envisioned. It was quite vast, lavish, and definitely built to impress. We wandered through the many rooms of the palace while admiring all it's intricate details and beautiful fresco ceilings. My favorite room was the Throne Room. Here was where the king and queen of Spain hosted guests and received their subjects. The room was extravagantly decorated with huge mirrors, chandeliers, statues, and bronze lions around the throne. We also passed the dining room which was still decorated from the wedding dinner about a week ago.
After the tour, a bunch
of us gathered around outside to figure out what to do next. A few people were going to the Mercado del Rastro to do some shopping. We didn't really have any plans so we tagged along. Once we got there, the market was absolutely jammed packed with people. We all tried to stick together but it was impossible so we all agreed to meet up later tonight for dinner. With the rest of the day at our disposal, Shea and I figured we would go out and do a little shopping of our own. We were in search of the typical cheesy tourist store but it wasn't that easy to find one. We ventured over to the Plaza Mayor, the main plaza in all of Madrid but were still unable to find a decent souvenir shop. Finally, we wandered over to Calle Mayor and were able to find a good number of souvenir shops to stock up on our cheesy tourist crap.
With our shopping done, we made our way to Retiro Park, the largest and most famous park in Madrid. However, it was a huge ordeal just to get there. Once we found the park, it took
El Palacio Real
The Throne Room inside the Royal Palace us forever to get across a busy street. We just stood there watching all the cars drive by waiting for an opportunity to make a mad dash across. We must have stood there for a good 10 minutes waiting for a chance when all of a sudden I saw an opening. I darted out and quickly made it across. Shea was not so quick and before she realized that I had made my move, it was too late and cars were again speeding by. It was another good 10 minutes before she finally made it across. We just walked around the park and soaked in the atmosphere. It was a warm sunny day and it seemed like most of Madrid was here in the park as well.
Later that evening, we all met up in the hotel lobby to catch the bus for our final dinner together. Dinner was in the Plaza Mayor at a restaurant called Los Galayos. Dinner was awesome and the wine was free flowing. It was a good time together reliving all the highlights of our trip. Afterwards, we went over to some Irish Pub in Plaza Mayor. Some people just wanted to hang
At the Palacio Real
Hanging out after touring the Royal Palace out here but other felt like dancing. Shea and I went off with the group that wanted to dance. We made our way over to a Salsa dance club. We ordered a few drinks and watched the people dance Salsa. Most of the people were really good and it was a little intimidating having to go out there. When Shea tried to drag me out there, I refused. But then one of the Australian girls forced me out with her. I did my best to improvise the best Salsa moves that I can think of. I'm sure I looked quite ridiculous and was the subject to many laughs from people watching. Later that night, the Australian girl that I was dancing with told me that her feet hurt because I was all over her feet while dancing. Wow, my first and only attempt at Salsa dancing was worse than I thought.
The next morning after breakfast, was the end of the tour. We said goodbye to most of the people as everybody had different plans for the rest of the day. Some were leaving back home, others were making their way over to other cities in Spain, while
El Parque del Retiro
Monument of Alfosono XII in the Retiro Park some like us had another full day in Madrid. When we booked an additional day in Madrid, we thought we would need it to see all of the sights that we had yet to see. However, it seemed like we had seen all that Madrid had to offer. We spent most of the day just wandering the city, doing a little more shopping, and having lunch at Hard Rock Cafe.
On our final morning, we were to meet up with Rochelle in the lobby so all three of us could ride together in a taxi to the airport. When we got there, she was nowhere in sight so we didn't bother to wait around. We got to the airport pretty early for our 10am flight to Frankfurt on Spanair. When we arrived in Frankfurt, we pretty much had to run to our next gate to catch our connecting flight on Lufthansa back to LA. 11 long hours later, we were back home in LA.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.079s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 11; qc: 30; dbt: 0.0318s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
