Day 3 in Madrid

Yesterday we had to limit our explorations due to the weather. Today's forecast was some sun and cloud with a high of 21C with a slight chance of a thunderstorm. We took our chances and booked tickets to go to the Prado Museum, one of Europe's premier art galleries. It was about a 4 km walk away through Central Madrid. The exterior of the building is currently shrouded in scaffolding and construction netting like a lot of other significant building in the city seem to be. Looks like a lot of facelifts in process!

The collection here numbers about 7000 paintings and sculptures although only about 1500 are on display. Way too many to see in a few hours. We enjoyed some of the Spanish portrait artists and some of the Reubins. We also saw a Rembrant and many Goya's.

Photography was not permitted but I accidentally tripped the shutter a few times :)

Leaving the museum, we walked by Iglesia de San Jeronimo El Real, this is where the past King Juan Carlos I was crowned in 1975.

We entered the large park "El Retiro" and strolled through the grounds.

We stopped at the Palicio de Cristal, originally built in 1887 as a winter garden.

From there we found a rose garden, still in full bloom!

We made our way from the park to the Paseo del Prado, a major avenue in the city. Along the way there we walked by a whole street of kiosks of booksellers.

There are a number of interesting buildings along Paseo del Prado other than the museum. One of the very interesting things we saw was a seven storey building with a vertical garden on one of it's walls.

There is a nice promenade running up the middle of the street.

We followed it to one of the major roundabouts, Plaza de la Cibeles. A nice fountain and the government Department of Communications building there.

Our feet were getting tired so we started to work our way back to our apartment following Calle de Alcala which featured some very nice architecture.

Back at the Plaza del Sol the street vendors were still busy dodging the police.

The huge crowds walking the street.

We tried for a tour of the Opera House but they were not available again today.

After all of this we deserved some chocolate and indulged in some churros and hot chocolate.

The thunderstorm arrived while we were eating but it only lasted a few minutes and was gone by the time we left to head back to the apartment to rest our feet for a few hours.

At around 7:30 pm we walked up to the Gran Via and found a little bistro and had a light supper.

Again a light shower as we left but not too much to deter us from strolling through the Plaza d'Espania.