Day 18: Madrid

Today, when we got up it was raining, so we planned some indoor activities.  We started off with the Royal Palace in Madrid.  It is enormous with 2800 rooms.  No pictures could be taken inside, so here are some views from outside.

We could only go through about 28 rooms.  They are spectacularly furnished. These were some of our favourites. The Stradivarius room which contains the only matched quartet of Stradivarius instruments, a cello, viola and two violins, our book claims that each is worth approximately $15,000,000.  The porcelain room whose walls are entirely covered in porcelain with strategic vines and flowers covering any seams.  The dining room which seats 144 at the table.  There are clocks every where because the royal family collects them.  There was also a fabulous armoury, filled with many fully armoured and mounted knights, and some of the most famous swords in Spain's history.

Next we went to lunch at a nearby market filled with interesting delights

After siesta we walked to the Reina Sofia Museum, a modern art museum.  It contains Picasso's Guernica.  It was interesting to see it, but overall the Prado museum is much better.

We walked back up to the El Retiro park as the sun was shining.  We passed a number of bookseller stalls that reminded us of Paris.

There is a crystal palace in the park that was modelled after the one in London.

Lots of people were out in boats on the artificial lake and we sat and watched them until the rain clouds started to build up again.  We stopped by the fancy cypress trees to show them to Bridget and Lila, who thought they looked like truffula trees from Dr Seuss.