Madrid

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We have discovered the European way of eating - lots of tapas bars where you stand and eat and drink - it's fantastic although after all the walking we've been doing am more than happy to sit down and give my poor feet a rest.

Today we did a 2.5 hour bus tour and went through different parts of Madrid from the oldest section - from 15th century through to modern day - it was highlighted the specific periods of the development of Madrid from Napoleon's time and the Civil War under General Franco's - which was in the early 20th Century. It's amazing to see places where history has been made so long ago and realise just how young Australia really is in comparison. We also visited the Royal Palace - which was ostentatious and huge crystal chandleliers everywhere, brocade walls and al fresco paintings on the ceilings. one part that amazed me was the armour that the soldiers wore and how small the men must've been back then - and they had models made to fit the armour - the men apparently anywhere from 5 - 5' 8" tall or small.....

Next we went to the main cathedral to the palace and they were looking for someone to conduct our surprise ceremony but no one was home!! The pontiff was nowhere to be found - weren't we lucky!! BUT we did find the chief wine maker for that Sauvignon Blanc - called Villa Maria - she is a sour looking woman who made the wine - her name of course is Saint Maria Villa de Jesus - ugly too. We moved on from the church to Old Madrid which was built during Spain's golden age with the architecture of the era and the streets are very narrow - meant for walking only and the old tenement housing which have all been renovated and the marvellous old style architecture built in the early 15th century.

Yesterday had to buy gloves and a beanie - it was 1 degree here but today it was much higher late morning - up to 10 degrees - but managed to lose one of my good gold hoop earrings when taking off my beanie at some place.

When we work out how to put photos on here we will add them on.... Okay how good are we? Plaza de Toros is the bull fighting ring which was built originally outside the city limits in 1931 and with the city growing it's now in the city. The Real Palazzo - is the Royal Palace - Re-Al is how it's pronounced and means Royal - same as the Soccer Team and yes we saw that stadium too - Re-Al Madrid - Royal not real as we aussies thought it was....

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