Madrid Day Dos

We started the day with a walk to Puerta del Sol, a large plaza in Madrid. Here I am in front of the statue of the symbol of Madrid---The Bronze Bear and the Madrono Tree. Oh, by the way, we both slept quite well last night. It felt good to be more rested.

Here is "kilometre zero", or the very center point of Spain's road system. This is located in Puerta del Sol. (We have a pic like this in front of Notre Dame in Paris, too.)

Mike in one of the Museo del Jamon stores. (Shanyn, we thought you would like to see more pictures of dried pork legs!)

We ate lunch in the Plaza Mayor (a very big, very old plaza---where the Spanish Inquistions took place and also some bullfighting at one point in time.) We both ordered paella, one carne (meat) and one mar (sea), and then we shared. We had chicken, beef, pork, prawns, squid, and mussells. Loved the prawns, but they were difficult to shell. The squid (calmari) was good. We drank lemon Kas this time around.

Here are the both of us in front of the statue of Felipe III in the center of the plaza.

We then wandered over to the Palacio Real and the Catedral de la Almudena. Unfortunately there was an equestrian practice for something official going on in the Plaza de Armas at the palace so it was closed for the day. Thus, we did not get to see the throne room or all the ornately decorated rooms sometimes used by the king and queen of Spain. Oh well.
Here is Mike buying another 10-ride Metro ticket. He looks handsome.

Here are a couple more fountains. I took pictures of five yesterday and another six today---where does that put me now Harmony? I really love fountains so I am glad to see so many. We also took 98 pictures today (49 yesterday)---it would be impossible to blog about it all. So these were just the highlights, like getting a free chocolate vanilla ice cream cup from a Canary Island jewelery store that we found today near Plaza Mayor. That was a nice little "highlight" to the day. So was being able to webcam with the kids back home. Awesome to see them and have them see us---pretty amazing. We love you, ninos!

In the evening we went to the Reina Sofia Museo, a modern art museum. We saw some pretty crazy Dali paintings, also Ponce De Leon and Picasso, including his famous "Woman in Blue" and "Guernica." I think my Dad would've appreciated a lot of the art since he studied modern art in college. The museum had cool glass elevators on the outside.

We ended the day with a spanish tortilla bocadillo (egg and potato omelette sandwish) and some muy, muy tasty helado (ice cream). I had chocolate truffle and pistachio and Mike had chocolate and raspberry. We finished eating our ice cream cones on the rooftop of the hotel. Even though it may be day time for you it is night time for me---Buenas Noches!