Friday, Oct. 4
We went to visit the Royal Palace, which was an easy walk from our hotel. The
grounds were spacious but nothing special, except for the statues all in a row of
several Roman Emperors, reminding us of Spain's history. In the Years 347 to
395, Teodosio I The Great, a Spanish born Roman Emperor, Christianized
the Roman Empire. Several of the palace rooms were impressive, but lighting
was very subdued and taking pictures without flash was very difficult. I
remember mostly the beautiful ceiling decorations and the massive chandeliers.
The palace was located on a high ridge of land so that from one side of its square you could see a good part of one section of Madrid, mostly residential. Such a scene brings to mind the sheer size of Madrid, which has about 3 million people. We stopped in at a small museum featuring horses and knights and Bob struck up a conversation with an attendant there who proceeded to display his encyclopedic knowledge of World basketball. After about 5 minutes of us naming an American name and hearing him reel off a set of related statistics in impeccable English, I was ready to push on.
