BELIEVE IT OR NOT, WE’RE ON THE ROAD AGAIN

We made it to Madrid early Friday morning on a knock-down gorgeous day. So after checking into our great little hotel, we went out to explore. Madrid is full of beautiful buildings and doors that are different looking than the ones in France, but just as beautiful, making the city as beautiful. The city also has lovely plazas that serve as a congregating point, or just as a short cut from point a to point b. But they are ALWAYS full of people. We’ve come to the conclusion that people come to the beautiful areas and walk just to see, be seen and as a family activity. Walking seems to be the way free-time is passed.

We chose a hostel that is near the center of the city and were able to walk to the

• Prado Museum (well laid out, full of light and spacious, full of Spanish artists like Goya, El Greco, and Gris.)

• Reina Sofia Museum (where Picasso’s Guernica is on exhibit-this is a museum of modern art, housed in a renovated hospital. It had no elevators so they built beautiful glass elevators on the outside. It is really classy.)

• and the Royal Palace of Madrid (Jan loves palaces and castles and was not disappointed by the splendor of this one. The king still resides in the upper floors.)

Our hotel room was small but comfortable with a traditional bathroom. We’ve found in our travels that bathrooms aren’t always what we expect.

The first picture is of Jan standing in front of the Madrid “mascot”, a standing bear trying to get the berries on the tree. In addition to the statue, the symbol is on the police uniforms and even made out of chocolate (hmmm, wonder if it tastes like chocolate berries?)

An example of Spanish aesthetics is the street sign. Not only is it large enough to see, but it’s beautiful. Each picture on the sign has something to do with the name of the street. Each sign is built into the building (they don’t change names of streets very often!) and has nine tiles.

We were also able to walk through several of the plazas, which as we mentioned are just full of people interacting at all times of the day. They are really a place of community. The next picture shows a night scene full of couples of all ages and families. We saw fewer children at night but during the day the families were often multi-generational.

This next picture is from within Plaza Mayor. We had lunch at an outdoor café and watched life go by. The square looks like this on all sides. As far as we know, there are some offices, but mostly apartments. If you look through the arch, you can see the building is about 10 or 12’ wide. So we are guessing that the apartments are several rooms in a row connected by hallways, but we are just guessing whether they are multi-story or just one story. At any rate, it would be a neat place to live if you like light (windows on both sides) and to people watch. Also in the picture, you can see a sidewalk restaurant, similar to where we had lunch, and one of the many artists selling their works. Jan really enjoyed the grand arches and the views to the rest of the city through them.

 
In the second picture, above, there is a man wearing a blue/white hat with two sticks tied with two yard-long ropes, expertly creating large bubbles. He entertained the children for hours this Sunday afternoon. It was entertaining for us too.


Lastly, the Plaza Puerta del Sol—where the bear statue is located—is larger and busier with street performers and with people offering to buy gold. Many of them were the “statues” being unflappable to tourists trying to taunt them into losing their composure. Pictured here is a couple that was motionless until someone dropped a tip into their basket. At that point they would slowly move for a minute, like a mechanical display, choreographed so they ended in a different position but touching again after the movement. They never opened their eyes. And this is real mud. We saw them earlier when much of their outfit was still wet. Dry, it looked very statuesque. We saw them in the same spot several days in a row, that’s probably where they work every day.

We arrived in Romania late Monday evening and are getting settled quite well. More about Cluj-Napoca in our next blog entry. Please keep in touch.