Madrid

The bus tour of Madrid started out at the Palacio Real, which is the royal family's summer palace. There's a square in front of it with a statue of one of the prior kings:

It has over 2,000 rooms! Of course they don't live there, they only use it for special parties.

The tour passes by one of the fanciest squares in the old city, the Plaza Mayor, which also has a statue in the center:

I ate dinner there later in the evening, at one of the many restaurants that line the inside of the square. There are lots of street performers in the square trying to earn tips.

There are many sights in Madrid, many old fancy buildings that I don't have any inkling what they are used for. This is one of the fancier ones, the Palacio de Comunicaciones:


There are also structures which serve no real purpose, like this "gate" in the Plaza de la Independencia:

It's kind of like the Arch de Triomphe in Paris, serves no real purpose except to remember some event which I didn't catch the full meaning of on the tour bus.

Madrid's major park is Parque del Retiro, and in the middle of it there's a man-made lake where you can rent row boats. The focal point of the lake is a monument on the far side named Monumento a Alfonso XII:

It was a very pleasant walk through the park, and the monument was a total surprise to me when I saw it.

There were MANY more sights, I just don't have time to upload the photos right now...

I'm heading home in the morning. Yipeee! It's been a wonderful trip, but I'm glad to be going home.