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| The fairest rose of them all! |
Weather wise, it was a beautiful day in Madrid. The high temperature was around 72, the humidity was low, and there was an occasional passing cloud to provide a little shade. It was a perfect day to be outdoors and that's pretty much where we spent the entire day.
If you look at a city map of Madrid there are patches of green throughout. Madrid is a city filled with parks. Some large, some small. On a day like today I'm sure they were filled with people of all ages enjoying the weather and each other.
Yesterday we spent time in the Parque Del Retiro, which I described as Madrid's version of New York's Central Park. Today's adventure took a us a little further from the hotel to another large park, Parque del Oeste. To get here it was an easy 35 minute walk up the Calle Gran Via, one of Madrid's main streets. Since I've already used one New York analogy, we'll compare Calle Gran Via to 5th Avenue. As we were making our way, the city was still coming to life so it wasn't too crowded.
Once we reached the park we discovered two surprises. Inside the park was an Egyptian Temple, the Temple of Debod. It was estimated to have been built in 200 BC. In 1970 it was disassembled, shipped to Madrid and reassembled. It's small in size but contains numerous hieroglyphics that are in amazing condition. Admission to the temple is free, which is certainly an added bonus. The temple itself is fairly small so they only allow groups of around 10 people at a time inside. Our waiting time to get inside was only around 20 minutes and it was well worth it.
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| Parque del Oeste |
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| The Temple of Debod |
The second surprise was the parks' huge rose garden (La Rosaleda) which was in full bloom. According to the signage the garden contained around 200,000 plants and more than 600 varieties. We've seen some impressive rose gardens in our travels but none that were more impressive than La Rosaleda. It was easy to see why the Worldwide Rose Federation awarded it the"Garden of Excellence" designation in 2006. I know the difficulty involved in earning such a prestigious designation. In 2010 my yard in Texas won a similar award from the Worldwide Weed Federation! Below are a few more pictures from La Rosaleda:
Another feature of Parque del Oeste is that it is connected to another park by an aerial cable car. The ride is about 10 minutes long and takes you over residences, a river and highway before reaching it's destination, Casa de Campo. This park, which was once a hunting estate for Spain's royal family is close to seven square miles in size, easily making it Madrid's largest park. As the cable car approaches the station you can see miles and miles of trails that crisscross through the rolling hills. The park also contains a lake, tennis complex, large amusement park and the Madrid Zoo.
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| The aerial cable car connecting the two parks |
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| The rose garden. This was taken from the cable car. That's the Royal Palace in the background. It's on the agenda for Monday. |
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| Casa de Campo from the cable car |
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| Mi casa is under a shade tree in Casa de Campo |
As we made our way back into town we walked for a while along the Calle Gran Via. The same walk that we shared with a few people in the morning we now shared with thousands, making it really seem like 5th Avenue.
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| Calle Gran Via in full swing |
Back in town, we had another freebie on the agenda. The Reina Sofia, another of Madrid's famous art museums offers complimentary admission. Tonight's hours were from 7:00 until 9:00. The hours vary, so if you're planning a free visit double check the schedule. The art in this museum is all from 20th century artists. The most familiar to us were Picasso and Dali. I'll have to hand it to both of them, they were unique!
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| Reina Sophia |
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| Art, is in the eye of the beholder |
Of course during the day we had to eat, and boy did we eat. Steve had recommended a restaurant that just happened to be a short distance from the rose garden. The name of the place is Casa Mingo. He advised us that we had to get the roasted chicken, so of course we complied. After one bite we agreed that it was without question the best we had ever eaten. They've had time to perfect this dish since the restaurant has been around since 1888. Somehow they've taken a simple dish and turned it into something extraordinary. Roasted chicken, salad, bread and cider...…...what more could you possibly need? According to Trip Advisor there are 10,514 restaurants in Madrid. I doubt we get to try them all over the next few days, but we may just have to double back to Casa Mingo!
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| A simple dish perfected |
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| We arrived early for lunch by Spanish standards. It was just a few minutes past 12:00. By the time we left every table inside and out was full. |
