Tuesday, September 13, 2016

A palace, a cathedral and some rain in Spain...

Playlist
John Barry - Beat For Beatniks & Beat Girls
Various Artists - Cloudland Blue Eclectic Selection 2016 Vols 1-52
Various Composers - 100 Best Tunes (Top 10)
Akio Koyama, Iva Navratova - Meisterwerke für Fagott
Fauré Quartet - Kirchner; Schumann: Piano Quartets

The view from the office this morning...


The weather had broken at last...


Although it did brighten up a little post breakfast...



...as we retraced our steps from last night over to the Royal Palace...









Past the cathedral...



...we joined the queue...


  



Twenty minutes later, we were in...




This is the third largest palace in Europe, after Versailles and the Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna...



















...and in we went...






It's a quite magnificent building...






However, once past the stairway, no photos are allowed of any of the rooms...

So here's a collage of pics I picked up from the web...












The most impressive room for me was the Stradivarius Room, where a quartet of the instrument maker's works is held in glass cases - along with a further cello...

All in all, there must have been around £15m worth of musical instruments (at least) in that one room...

Out...


...and to a gallery within a wing of the palace, exhibiting works from Italy which have recently been restored...










Obviously, our young friend got a bit tired of all the art...


Not to worry...





Out again...

Cloudy skies...







Into the Royal Armoury...






We made our exit...

Here the face of a man who has been entertained by history...


Into the cathedral...


There's no denying religion, if nothing else, has been the cause of much good art and music...























I reckoned this guy was having a bit of a rave up...


...while this lady was giving the thumbs up (on closer inspection it turned out she was merely carrying a bible...)


As predicted in the forecast, the rain started, so we took refuge in a wee cafe opposite the cathedral...



..and ended up having lunch...


...and, indeed, a beer...


Once the rain had gone (it was torrential but no pics), we walked back to the other side of town...


...and to Atocha station to check out times and trains to Toledo tomorrow...



They have a garden in the middle of the station with a colony of terrapins...





Out...




...and back to the Retiro Gardens again...






We saw many parrots during our stay but this blurry wee beastie was the only one I managed to capture with the camera...





Today we re-visited the Crystal Palace, last seen in 1989...












There was an art exhibition inside - this, an extension of the Reina Sofia...




Don't ask...








Outside, someone was being booted off a reality TV show...


The judges...


The contestants - the guy with the dyed blonde hair took the walk of shame...




We walked on too...








Back down towards the Prado...





...but we did not enter...


Back to Reina Sofia...


...and we enjoyed a beer and a pizza...



...until the heavens opened once again...





It soon passed, although we'd had to seek refuge inside the cafe...



A final walk home...





Another packed, enjoyable day - just as it should be...

Highlight of the Day : A Royal Palace,,,

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