Day 1: Red Eye from San Jose to Madrid

We left San Jose at 5 PM on Sunday July 21 on Iberia Airlines, our preferred carrier from Costa Rica to Europe. After a lovely night flight with great Iberia service, we arrived in Madrid on Monday morning July 22 to begin our 2012 adventure.

We checked into our Madrid hotel, Hotel Vill de la Reina on Boulevard Gran Via. To the south of our hotel lie the historic districts of Puerta del Sol and Plaza Mayor, which lie between Catedral de Almudena and El Palacio Real on the east and the Prado Museum on the west. North of our hotel is Zona Chueca, a bohemian area full of quaint narrow streets, bistros, bars, and trendy shops. 

View of El Gran Via from our room in Hotel de la Reina. We dumped our luggage and we are ready to sample Madrid.

We walked down a pedestrian corridor full of sidewalk cafes and decided a cold beer was in order before hitting the Royal Palace.

 

The streets of Madrid are full of local characters offering photo ops in return for tips. We could for the life of us not figure out how these guys did this. The one below appears to be single-handedly holding up the other guy who is sitting on a pole. Ouch!

First stop on the trek to the Palace is the Puerto del Sol. Here we are in front of the statue of Phillip II of Spain. King Phillip inherited a debt-ridden and weak monarchy from his predecessor. Under his leadership, he turned Spain into a far-flung empire and the most powerful nation on earth at the time. In 1561, he moved the capital of Spain from Toledo to Madrid.

Some of the lovely architecture surrounding the statue of Phillip II in the Puerto del Sol. The modern entrance to the Metro station is to the left.

Closer to the Palace now, we arrive at Plaza Mayor with its decidedly French influence. The statue in this plaza is Charles III who ruled Spain from 1759-1788. Charles was descended from the French kings rather than the Hapsburgs who had traditionally ruled Spain. He presided over a contraction of the Spanish Empire, but successfully transformed Spain from a collection of kingdoms and territories into a unified country.

I'm standing the Plaza de la Armeria, which is a large marble and stone courtyard in front of El Palacio Real. You can see the entrance to the Palace behind me. The Palace is still the official residence of the royal family, and is the largest royal residence in Europe based on square meters of floor space. It has 2800 rooms! Wonder how many housekeepers it takes to mop all those floors?

View of the Rio Manzanares from the Plaza de la Armeria.

One of the ornate lamp posts in the Plaza leading up to the Palace.

Outside the main entrance to the Palace. The architecture is decidedly Italian. The Palace shines under the cloudless Andalusian sky.

Grand staircase leading up to the main formal areas of the Palace. This is the only interior photo I took before the docent started yelling at me "No photos! No photos!" I stole the rest of these off the Internet.

The opulent throne room with 4 gilded lions guarding the thrones of the king and queen.

Prior to the invention of central heat, the rooms of the palace were hung with huge tapestries in the winter as extra insulation. In the summer, they were taken down to reveal the silk wall coverings and carved mirrors.

This is the Royal Chapel.

And the Royal Dining Room. The table has enough leaves to extend it to accommodate up to 140 people for state dinners. Imagine silver service for 140!

Back outside, the beautiful Catedral de Santa Maria de la Almudena. Construction on this magnificent cathedral was started in 1879 but not completed until 1993. Unfortunately, we were too jet-lagged to go inside another magnificent building, so we retraced our steps to El Gran Via for some tapas in El Chueca.

 

Some of the quaint streets in El Chueca. Tired from our first day of sight-seeing, we grabbed a few tapas, and took our jet-lagged tired selves to bed.