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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Fantastic deal on this Craftsman Mechanics Tool Set!
And in Canada...
No wonder people are lining up to get in for free - tickets start at $47CAD!
ReplyDeleteYikes, that is expensive! You really have to like art work to pay that kind of price or to stand in line for free to see it. For us, we just wouldn't appreciate the artwork enough to make it worth the visit.
DeleteInteresting photos. So far your matchups with Kevin's dad's photos have looked fairly similar, especially compared to some of the other places you've gone and done that. I wonder what those gorgeous purple flowers are - any idea?
ReplyDeleteWe also noticed that not a lot has changed over the years between Kevin's father's pictures and Kevin's pictures. We have noticed this in quite a lot of the pictures we have matched up over the last few years. The place where we noticed the biggest difference was in Luxembourg a few years back.
DeleteI think those purle flowers are purple rock crest, that or possibly purple ground phlox but I think it is more likely the rock crest.
El Prado is worth the charge. We went one day and spent six hours there and then returned for the free entrance. Chaos but I wouldn't miss it. Ruth mentioned the expensive restaurants. Probablly so but we really don't eat out that much so I can say what we did see was expensive. Chinese near the main tourist square was really good and very reasonable, King Wok! We ate there three times both coming and going. The San MIguel market was interesting but we just had a glass of wine and a couple of tapas.
ReplyDeleteHonestly, we would not appreciate the art for what it is worth, we just aren't into artwork enough to wander around a museum for six hours, not even enough to stand in line to see it for free for a couple of hours.
DeleteWe are pretty sure that we could find some restaurants that are reasonably priced but when we have cooking facilities we will use them to make our meals, it works out a lot cheaper this way and it is easier for me to make sure my food is gluten free. I know that we will be eating out at some point during our time here in Spain so we will wait until we are staying at a hotel for the night to have our meals out.
We enjoyed wandering around the San Miguel market and watching the people and looking at the different tapas but we did not have the urge to indulge ourselves, plus the fact that most of the tapas have gluten in them. We will save our money for things that we would enjoy or appreciate more.