When we bought our tickets for the Prado Museum, they gave us coupons for free wine and tapas at a local restaurant. Even though it was slightly out of the way, we managed to find it on our way home. The tapas were just so so... some kind of potato salad with tuna in it and crab and pineapple in a kind of mayonnaise sauce. Made us glad we'd eaten so many meals at McDonalds. Lauren got a glass of white wine and I had red. We tasted each other's but didn't like either one much.
La Plaza Mayor. This was probably my favorite place in Madrid. It's a huge square with beautiful architecture and a lot going on. There were local artists and other people with creative ways to make a euro or two. Some great shops (including one that had only things that were hand made in Spain - beautiful!).
Just off the Plaza Mayor... interesting picture - I was trying to take a picture of Jesus in the window of a religious store and kept getting the building across the street reflected in the window. Thought it was a cool shot...
As opposed to New York, they actually let you pet the police horses in Spain... at least in the Plaza Mayor.
Stature of Goya outside of the Prado Museum. We enjoyed the Prado, especially the artists who were set up throughout the museum recreating the masterpieces. Amazing talent. Wish they would have let us use cameras inside.
Cathedral across from the Prado.
Getting our caricatures done in the Plaza Mayor. A very talented artist! If we'd had a photo with us, he does charcoal replicas in a day - and is very good (and CHEAP at $15 euros per person). We saw an example of his work when a woman picked hers up.
Guys blowing bubbles in the Plaza Mayor.
We have thoroughly enjoyed our last day in Spain. We started the day with breakfast at McDonald's (we're totally in love with the cafe con leche at McDonald's here... it's better than Starbucks - which is also right down the street). We went back on the double decker bus (love that thing!) and headed to Plaza Mayor this morning. Lots of great arts and crafts, neat shops, and creative entertainment. From there, we visited the Prado Museum. Those two things took most of the day. On our way home, we made a side trip to El Corte Ingles (The English Court) which is this amazing 10 story department store along the lines of Macy's. We rode the escalator up all 10 floors to the rooftop restaurant at the top. We had coupons for free tapas and wine. We didn't really enjoy either one, but it was one of our favorite adventures of the trip. We also stopped on the 8th floor to check out towels and linens and picked up a cute set of sheets for Lauren's dorm room this fall. Also found great pewter napkin rings on the clearance table with a big elephant head on them (needed those for football season!). Came home with a few souvenirs, including a small local piece of art and a flamenco dancer ornament for my Christmas tree.
We're packing and napping for a bit this afternoon (also needed to cool off - this is by far the hottest day of our trip). At around 8, we're going to head to dinner (they eat dinner really late here... a lot of the restaurants don't even open until 8:30 or 9!) and then ride the double decker bus after dark to see the lights of the city. All of the lights, stage, sound system, etc... from last night's concert are still set up in the plaza next to our hostal, so we're hoping there may be another concert tonight. If so, we'll check that out on our way back to the hostal. We have to get up at 2:30 in the morning to head to Kenya, so we're not concerned about getting a lot of sleep tonight. Probably a 2-3 hour nap would be best and maybe we can sleep on the 8 hour flight from Amsterdam to Kenya.
Definitely have enjoyed this trip and would recommend Spain to all of you world travelers out there. If you need a great (and cheap!) hostal, I suggest where we are staying: La Hostal Estrella.
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