Aitor was able to finish up his work at the University & take us on a wonderful walking tour of the city. Here we are setting off with our tour guide...he had an umbrella as it rained that day in Madrid and apparently that is very rare, coming from Brussels it seemed like a normal day to us!
Our first stop was a Tesla dealership for Charlie, he got to see how the doors open & sit in one..
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| Look at the detail on this place-incredible! |
We went to a beautiful tapas place and then followed with a trip to the food hall market, it was great to see all the different things on display. Greg & Aitor tried the Tio Pepe, which has a famous sign in the Sol square, here is the sign at night.
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| Just about a perfect drink menu for me...Sangria & Cider...and a new thing I've discovered, Aperol Spritz.. |
The cheese counter at the food hall!
We said farewell to Aitor, he was off to Munich in the morning, but we hope to see him in Brussels soon!
Our next stop was the Royal Palace, which we read was one of the most elaborate in all of Europe and the guide books were correct! Most impressive were the working old clocks in most rooms, the Stradivarius room-4 instruments all made by the master, the Throne room, and the china collection...
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| Sisters! |
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| We caught the tail end of a procession inside. |
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| A little different than the last lion that was that close to him! |
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| I liked the sea shells in the window high up in the main entrance hall! |
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| Picture of a painting of the royal family. A few weren't smiling, must not be that much fun? |
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| I liked the arms on the beautiful bench. The carpets were incredible throughout. |
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| One of the clocks... |
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| No longer just from our history books...but here is their china set! |
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| A sphinx table that they signed lots of agreements on... |
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| He already thinks he is the king...just ask his sisters! |
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| A gorgeous state outside the palace. |
Next stop, I was most excited about...Churros y Chocolate (which was the title of my high school Spanish book) I have never had an official churro, so we went to the famous place that has been selling them for over 100 years.
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| There is always a line outside, day or night... |
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| The chocolate was as thick as pudding that you dunk them in. |
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| Is it too late to ask for extra credit from my Spanish teacher? I guess so as I can't even remember her name! |
We do miss American Halloween, so I planned our trip to a country where they celebrate Halloween. I found an area of the city that had "Trunco y Trato". It took me a few days of google searching "Trick or Treat" and coming up empty to think of trying to search it in Spanish...turns out the neighborhood that had it was only about a ten minute walk from our place.
We stopped at a cool old costume shop that was right by the churro place and bought some last minute items, the only person that packed a costume for the trip was Charlie. They sold flamenco outfits there and it was fun to see racks of the dresses and fun shoes. The place was a zoo, full of last minute shoppers frantically flipping through costume books figuring out what to be. We were in a hurry but they had all night,as we learned that most of them just stayed out all night long!
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| Last minute shoppers! |
Our stop paid off and we headed off prepared...
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| Sadly most people couldn't tell it was a costume!! I had him keep it to wear to work some day! |
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| Some of the bars had creepy guys outside scaring kids! |
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| These ladies had quite the makeup jobs! |
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| This place was the BEST full goodie bags for each kid! |
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| A few beautiful places we walked past before it got too dark. |
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Just gorgeous, huh?
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We stopped in this store in our walk back to our place, was fun to see all the American products on sale, the prices were crazy too!
The kids were happy to have found real trick or treating, Katie later told us that was her favorite part of the trip.
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