Judy's Travels: Madrid and New Year 2011

New Years Day 2011

The B’s are currently out having coffee as most services are closed today. I am taking the GPS for a walk later and looking for a local park. The B’s accompanied me and BJK led the way. A short walk to a beautiful park was more like 40kms. We walked from the apartment to RETIRO PARK. This park is very large (12 hectares) and lovely despite winter, and is Madrid’s most important park. This is largely due to the history as it was part of the Palace of Buen Retiro built in the 17^th Century by Philip IV. The design of the park is a succession of spaces in which plants and trees alternated with ponds, statues or small shrines. You could wander for days and never repeat your journey.

The Gates to Madrid - Puerta de Alcala

The main walk after entry to the Retiro Park

Another view of the main walk - note how popular the park is

Pond in the Retiro Park presided over by Statue of Alphonse XII

The B's in front of the same pond - not sure why BJL is looking so serious

The Crystal Palace at Retiro Park

An exhibition in the Crystal Palace of the best use of Plastics

Another area of the park with greenery and trees

BJL and JLK walking in Retiro Park

Still walking and checking GPS

BJL can help - BJK is being no help

We know how to get there anyway

Another area of the park

As you will recall I intended to take the GPS for a walk so I could orientate it to the local area. It came in very useful but the pictures taken by BJK would suggest otherwise. No more will be said.

After leaving the Park we checked out a few locations for lunch, one of which BJL recommended. However, we continued further up the road (as we generally do) with a view to see if there was anything else worth trying. We found several but decided on one. This Tapas Bar was lovely but I was exhausted and failed to maintain any notes regarding its name or what we had. I was too hungry. It was in the Plaza Sta Ana. What you can be sure of is that we had wine, coca cola light, and plenty of Tapas. Added to this there were only stools to sit on. I find them difficult and as the stool was small (smaller than my bum as Brian pointed out) I found it difficult to balance. However, being as capable as I am, I managed.

On returning to the apartment I watched the replay of the final at Abu Dhabi Tournament between Federer and Nadal. Nadal won. The end of another marvellous day. Now I am going to see how 'Reacher' manages against 'Paulie' in the Lee Childs novel I am reading on my E-Reader.

It is the 2nd today and again fairly quiet. The B's went back to the PRADO and another museum whilst I prepared my packing, started looking in the shops and then went to meet them for lunch at the Tapas bar BJL had recommended yesterday. Problem was that when I arrived it was closed so we returned to the square and went to another restaurant in Plaza Sta Ana. Again I did not take details but I was a very nice restaurant and we had wine and I forget the rest.

After this we all went shopping. I bought a new smaller handbag, with the help of the B's. I must say BJL is very knowledgeable about these things and I have a lovely new medium sized hand bag in a very good colour but I do not know what colour it is - probably mushroom. BJK visited the farmacia for some antibiotics and I bought a DVD called Roma. We will start watching it tonight and we did check that we could get English language on the DVD, and we could. We managed only to watch two episodes of about 50 so I have further watching to do.

We are currently eating all the food we have in the apartment so we had wine and fruit salad for dinner – worked well.

Tomorrow we will catch the fast train to Barcelona, this trip should take about 3 hours and I am really keen to experience this ride.

On finishing our time in Madrid I thought I would add one or two more photos to enhance the memory.