Europe, Day 8

[2020 note: the images get more corrupted as the post goes on.]

Slept in a bit today. Vineet’s vibrant nasopharyngeal discharge has accordingly ceased.

The “morning” looked like coffee and tapas for brunch at an outdoor café, followed by a stroll in a random direction out of the touristy section where we are staying (Sol), into a place where there are people who actually live in Madrid. Turns out that walk was longer than it felt, because by the time we stopped to rest, it was time to head to another part of town for our 3:00 bicycle tour.

We saw the spokes and the pedals and the HANDLEBARS and oh! You should have seen the seat.

After this Vineet and I each got on a bike, along with the only other – our very own personal Swiss tour guide. He was older, and he seemed to know everything there is to know about the history of Europe, so that was good. The ride was nearly three hours, so you really get to see a lot of the sights of the city this way, as he later mapped out for us in green and blue highlighter:

This would have been a good thing to do the first day, but we didn’t know to do it the first day. Anyway, there were many pretty pictures to take.

There was guy on horse:

A palace:

A cathedral:

Our guide (now I remember his name – Casper. Casper the friendly bicycle tour guide) was not impressed by the stained glass on the cathedral. Well, you try staining glass and we’ll see how it comes out.

I was surprised to learn just how much royal mingling there was in the last six centuries. For example, that palace two above was designed by the French (baroque style, if you’re into that), built by an Italian king, in Spain.

Then there’s this big plaza:

With nice arched entrances:

Oh, and Spain has no government. They can’t decide who’s in charge so they’re just like fuck it we’ll do it later. There is still a congressional building, though, just for us:

There were plenty of other pretty buildings, but also a vertical garden:

A horizontal garden:

And trees beginning to change color:

Part of the trouble of learning the history of buildings in Europe is that the stories mostly fit the same template. At one point, Vineet and I were walking into some historical square, and there was a brass plaque on the wall explaining, in Spanish, what the building was. Vineet asked me what is says, and I replied that the building had been commissioned hundreds of years ago by a powerful rich person, and was built over multiple decades, at great expense (some people died building it!), and served an official purpose until about a hundred years later it was severely damaged in a war, and was sold and long abandoned until within the last 100 years it was bought by a preservation society that left it in the custody of the city and recently restored it, so that it now serves as a gift shop and has an impressive plaque on it. Many of the prettiest buildings seem to share this story. I have no idea what the plaque says. [2020 note: I'm not confident that conversation actually occurred]

Check out this one:

Some guy lived or died there. Or is buried there. Or some combination.

Here’s the town hall:

Refugees are welcome into this building. I did not see such a banner at immigration, though. Check out the statues. They are actually statesmen frozen in carbonite – according to the prophecy, they will come back to life when either a government is formed in Spain or unemployment drops below 20%, whichever happens first. Some were first transformed into giant cats by the Witch King of Leon.

That’s all solid marble. Don’t make them like they used to.

There is a colossal tribute to Columbus discovering the New World:

And finally, since you asked, another guy on a horse:

Had your fill? Granted, Madrid has nothing on Iceland in the horse department, but they make a good effort:

Tomorrow it’s off to Barcelona. Buenas noches.