On Friday the 14th, Ben and I got to be tourists.
We started off by almost being robbed by some gypsies. We were warned about
them but I didn’t really expect to encounter them. We were walking down the
street when all of a sudden three teenage girls physically blocked our path and
shoved some papers in our faces asking us to sign them so that Madrid can have
better handicap support…or something like that. It was really hard to see the
papers because they kept waving them around. We were just going to sign them to
get the girls out of our face when all of a sudden I look over and Ben has an
iron grip on his wallet. One of the girls had reached for Ben’s pocket where
his wallet was. He told me once we got away from them that she said she wanted
to see his license. So Ben has a death grip on his wallet and they are trying
to point to his license and we are trying to walk by them but they won’t get
out of our way. Another lady comes by and says something, I didn’t catch it,
but it distracts the girls long enough for us to get away. About 100 feet
later, a policeman asks Ben if he checked his wallet to make sure they hadn’t
taken anything. Ben told him had and
that the girls hadn’t got anything. Then, another 100 feet down the sidewalk,
an elderly man comes towards us trying to show us something in his hand and
talking to us in Spanish. We ignore him because one, we were just accosted by
the girls and didn’t want to go through that again and two, I thought he
could’ve been a beggar. The beggars here are much more pushy and in your face
than I am used to. So I just said to him “No, no, no” and kept walking but then
he said “policia, policia” so we stopped. He asked us “Los romanos, los han
robado?” (Did the gypsies steal from you?) I told him no and he kept going
about his business of trying to track the girls down.
After that bit of excitement we were at our destination
point. El Palacio Real and El Catedral
de la al mudena. First we walked around the gardens outside the palace
and got some pictures of the surrounding area. Then we took an audio tour of
the palace. It was breathtaking!! We got to see dining rooms, smoking rooms, a pharmacy,
the armory room, personal bedrooms and entertainment rooms of past monarchs, a
sample of the dishes (silver and crystal) and cutlery that was used and still
used on special occasions. We also got to see the royal chapel and throne room.
Pictures were not allowed inside but I snuck a couple. The art work and decorations was beyond
intricate. Instead of wall paper some of the walls were covered in elaborately
embroidered fabric or covered with massive, intricately woven tapestries. Other
walls were covered with 3D porcelain statues from floor to ceiling or
beautifully painted tiles from the Orient. All the ceilings had some sort of
mural painted on it. The whole palace was absolutely breath- taking. The armory
was pretty cool too; so many different suits of armor from the various kings.
We saw some of the first cross bows, cannons and guns; plenty of suits of
armors for knights, kings and even kids. We also saw jousting sticks, swords,
shields, armor for horses and even a dog! The most amazing thing was the
elaborate intricate designs on the armor and shields, some depicting Roman
life, battles of the gods or just some neat looking designs. A couple of
shields even had precious jewels embedded in them. The armor we saw ranged over
many decades and came from a few different countries. We saw Japanese and
Mongolian armor in addition to the Spanish armor.
After the palacio, we were going to go the catedral but it
closed in half an hour so we will do that another day. While there though we
saw signs for a crypt so we went and saw that. Pictures were allowed here so I
went a little crazy. J
Same thing here, the statues and mosaic artwork was so beautiful! After walking
around for about twenty minutes I started paying closer attention to the dates
on the crypts and I realized that people are still being laid to rest there to
this day! And, there are some open spaces if anyone is looking to be buried
there. It was weird walking over the crypts and I tried to walk around them but
they are so jam packed on the floor it was hard to do sometimes. Ben found
someone who was 106 when she died!
After the crypt we saw a Islamic wall that is from the 9th
century! It is one of the rare remnants of Islamic Madrid. The wall protected a
fortress built by the founder of Madrid, Emir Mohammed I. The wall
was called al-Marjit which is Arabic for “source of water”. It was later
changed to Marjet which was later chang.ed to the current name Madrid.
After the wall we walked through Plaza de la villa and Plaza
Mayor where we eventually ended up in Sol and took the metro home for a siesta.
All in all it was a great tourist day.
El Palacio Real
Notice the head under his foot...
The court yard where a lot of military drilling went on and where the military would be presented to the royal family.
I snuck these pictures. Look at the tapestries and ceiling in the next picture though! The rooms only became more and more elaborate!
The royal throne room. The thrones are in the center of the picture. The walls are covered floor to ceiling in red velvet.
The Orient Court Yard.
The view from across the street.
The crypt:
You can make a little offering and you get to take a card with the Saints' prayer on it.
Sr. D. Joaquin del Soto Hidalgo is laid to rest here. His crypt is laid out in the following pictures. It is pretty elaborate!
The entrance to Sr. D. Joaquin's crypt.
An image of Señora Flor de la Flor de Lis
"If with happiness i live, with greater happiness I die because Christ is resurrected."
Entire families are buried in the same tomb:
These look to be individual tombs for ashes.
Saint Fernando
The most recently buried woman in this tomb was 106 years old!
The view from the outside.
The Islamic wall:
This is a view of the city from that time period. It shows where the wall was around the city.
Plaza Mayor: Lots of fun place to eat in here!
