Madrid's El Retiro Park, and another photo matchup

We went and did some shopping Thursday morning. I actually didn't plan this very well. I wore my hiking boots on the plane as the only pair of footwear that I brought. But I knew that my hiking boots didn't have many miles left on them. I should have left them behind and wore my sneakers and bought some new hiking boots here.

Anyhow, I needed to buy some walking shoes of some kind. We ended up at a local zapateria (shoe store) where they had a really good selection of Sketchers. I bought an extremely lightweight pair for €65 ($101 CAD, $73 USD). Not like me to buy something that's not on sale, but they were comfortable, and exactly what I was looking for.

By the time we got back to the apartment and had some lunch it was starting to rain. It was only supposed to last a couple of hours, but we didn't head out again until after 3:30pm by the time it cleared up enough to head out.

It was a 3 km walk to the southern edge of El Retiro Park (the Madrid equivalent of New York's Central Park). 

Ruth, in the rose garden at El Retiro Park.

Lots of roses in bloom.

A perfect flower.

There are a lot of fountains in the park.

Funny statue fountains.

Lots of fountains and gardens.

Funny ducks.

The Crystal Palace is being renovated.

The Chestnut trees are in full bloom.

The sun came out and all of these turtles come to shore to try and absorb some heat. It was really funny to watch them clambering over each other to try to get out of the water.

A black swan.

A lot of people rent a rowboat.

There are a lot of statues and monuments in the park.

These clouds were really dark, but we only got a couple of drops.

This was called "the cat hill", but there were no cats.

Only the two cat statues at the base of the hill.

The remains of a 13th century church.

this is all that is left of it!

We still had one more of my dad's photo's to match up. So we left the park and walked on the roads for a while. 

Scenery along the way.

Big traffic circle monument.

Palacio de Cibeles in 1954.

And 71 years later in 2025!

Except I made one mistake. Of course it's difficult when I'm only looking at the tiny original photo on my phone. But when I looked at it on my laptop, I realized that I should have actually been standing on the opposite side of the people crossing at the crosswalk. The crosswalk still exists at exactly the same spot, but I was standing about where the guy with the hat was in the original photo, and I should have been about six feet back! Oh well.

Another traffic circle monument.

Inside the Palacio de Cibeles, and looking up.

The we did the 4.5 km walk back to the apartment.

We walked by the famous Prado Museum

No way we would wait in the lineup to get in for free at 6:00pm!

Today (Friday), we take the subway to the north part of the city for another two nights at different accommodation. Only one problem... we slept in!

Likely related to the jet lag, but we haven't been sleeping well here so far. Until last night! We went to bed at around 10:30pm, and I didn't bother setting the alarm because 99% of the time we are awake before 7am. Well, this was the 1% of the time we don't wake up. Ruth got up to go to the bathroom, and came back and checked her phone and it was 9:30am! Holy crap! And we had to be out by 11am.

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