Sunny Spain: A Picture Extravaganza

A few weeks ago, The Boy found himself in Madrid on business that wrapped up on Friday afternoon and so we decided that, rather than him flying back to London, I would fly to Madrid and we would take a micro break in Spain. To be honest I've always been kind of eh about Spain. Chalk it up to a heavily pro Anglo-Saxon public education, I guess. If it doesn't have to do with English history, a Monty Python sketch, or a Mel Brooks movie, I just don't know that much about it. So I had the kind of expectations that come with not knowing a whole lot about a new place, which is to say they were neither big nor small. I was open to anything.

I have to say, they don't call it Sunny Spain for nothing. It was lovely and warm and quite a change from the chilly damp of England we'd left behind. Things actually moved at the slow, laid back pace I'd always thought of as a myth. They really DO take siestas, which seemed perfectly natural in the heat of the afternoon. Around 8 or 9 in the evening the city squares started to fill up with people sitting at sidewalk cafes eating yummy tapas and sipping sangria until the wee hours of the morning.

Plaza Mayor.
The carvings around the base of the lamp posts (the pic on the right) tell its epic history.

Street Scenes
I love the sheep and pig signs for the butcher. Sadly, they don't eat a lot of cow.
Sorry, Daddy Belle.

The Botanical Gardens.
I'm looking up at a giant tomato plant.

Pretty dahlias in the Botanic Garden

There were amazing buildings everywhere, most of them churches.
1) San Jeronimo el Real 2) Almudena Cathedral
3) The Post Office 4) A Church we stumbled across
5) A really big statue on top of a really big building.
6) The Royal Palace

All in all, I'd have to say that our day in Spain was amazing and we will definitely be going back. Maybe next time we'll try Barcelona.