No fixed plans today we thought we'd head towards the Palace & take it as it comes. Enroute we stopped in our favourite little Santa Ana Plaza & said 'hello' to Frederico Garcia Lorca, who as a gay, liberal poet didn't last long in Franco's Spain. (I think I mentioned him in the Granada postings).
To our surprise, the entrance to Plaza Mayor was closed off & there were police everywhere. It wasn't long before the Royal carriage rocked up, so there was definitely something of importance going on. Was Obama visiting???? Surely this much fuss wouldn't be in honour of Senor Abbott!!!! (LOUD GUFFAW!) It was taking a while for the action to happen , so we started walking off...
...however, a formation of guards on horses, came trotting up the pavement. It seemed appropriate to stop & wait!
After blasts of discordant brass instruments, the whole shebang started moving off with their very important passenger safely tucked inside. (We suspect a member of the Royal Household!!) It was all very exciting given that we had no idea what was going on.
As the presence of all the King's men meant that the roads they travelled on were closed to traffic, & we had planned to go that way anyway...we tagged behind providing Royal back up....mindful of where we stepped as the horses had certainly left their mark!
We stopped in at the Cathedral de la Almudena first, as it was right next door to the Palace. It was begun in 1879, & has clearly been added to in more recent times & wasn't consecrated until 1993. It is dedicated to the Virgin of Almudena. Allegedly in 1085 Alfonso VI found an image of the Virgin inside the city walls & thus she was named for the Arabic word meaning wall & adopted as the patron Saint of the new capital, Madrid.
I was enamoured with the brightly painted ceiling. Unlike anything I'd seen before.
And I took this snap to highlight that even brides of Christ have to clean the House of God!!!!!!!!!
The Palace beckoned, but clearly the exciting events of earlier had yet to be completed, as no tourists were allowed in! So we went to the Plaza de Oriente for a closer look at...
...Royal garden Gnomes. According to the story we heard on our tour the other night, these sculptures were created to adorn the top of the Palace, along the edge of the roof. However, one of the young Princesses (don't ask me when) had such terrible nightmares that the sculptures would fall in on top of her, that they were removed & put in various garden areas around Madrid instead!!!!!!!
Coffee was needed & just a hop, skip & a jump away was this beautiful café. It looked like it was from another era. The crocheted lace on the back of the seat went around the WHOLE café & was clearly hand made. I hate to think how many concentrated hours that took!
More wandering & meandering eventually took us to the market we had SO wanted to return to.
We sampled paella that had clearly been cooked from scratch. Apparently a lot of restaurants have pre-prepared paella that just gets whacked in the microwave before giving it to tourists. It isn't really a local dish, it hails from Valencia, but tourists expect to be able to sample, so why not! We had a few more yummy nibbles before popping across the road...
...for the best tortilla in town & a lunchtime copa of Rioja! So decadent! Siesta summoned after that for Jeff, while I visited every Disgual shop in central Madrid & bought myself .....nothing. It was 3 hours & a woeful result! SIGH! I would have been better off having siesta!!
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