Royalty and Deity

This morning, on purpose, I slept in until 9:00.  It is the only chance I have had or will have until I am home again, so I thought I might as well take advantage of this fabulous bed!  Even so, there were relatively few people on the street when I went next door and picked up some fruit for breakfast.  The street weirdos were just putting on their makeup and getting set for the day, Puerta del Sol was pretty empty, and it wasn't yet very hot (even now, at 3:00 pm it is only 87 degrees).

I do wish the other guy had not walked up just as I was taking this picture, or you could see it better.  At first, I thought the bottom guy was fake, but he was not, and neither was the top guy.


The walk down from Sol to the palace was nice, and I had not realized how close it actually was.  I wanted to see the Almudena Cathedral first, but as I took a couple of pictures, the line at the palace entrance kept getting longer and longer, so I thought I had better see that first.  No pictures were allowed inside.  The past royals must have been big believers in Better Living Through Chemistry, judging by the number of whole rooms of medicine jars and boxes and drawers, not to mention the distillery for making medicines!

My favorite room was the porcelain room, with every surface covered in porcelain, fitted together perfectly, with the vines and leaves covering any joints, so that it looks like you are inside one whole piece.  I also liked the royal chapel, with its gold ceiling, and the king's dressing room, where, in place of a fresco on the ceiling, there were 3-dimensional flowers and vines (hard to describe).  The throne room, I have to say, looks better on the postcards than in real life.  I also loved seeing the four Stradivarius instruments in the Stradivarius room (two violins, a viola, and a violoncello - not sure about that spelling).



                             Royal palace, from the balcony of the Almudena Cathedral.

I almost forgot to go see the armory, but I am so glad I remembered!  I think I was expecting rooms of swords and guns, and there were some, but what it mostly was was armor for both people and horses.  Monty Python's Black Knight came instantly to mind when I saw one helmet that looked pretty much like a bucket, with really no visible slits to see out of (surely there must have been some way to see out of it).  There was no photography allowed, but I might have maybe accidentally turned on my camera and bumped the shutter button once.  The horse armor was really impressive.  How did they not die of heat stroke?  How did they even manage to fight after spending all that time putting on all the pieces,  and weighing down their poor horses with even more armor?  You would think they would get halfway through and just decide to give it up and go take a nap.

They also had a display of children's armor.  Did they send them out to fight, or was it just for ceremonial purposes and royal portraits?  I kept picturing a room of used armor being swapped around by parents whose kids have outgrown last year's helmet and breastplate, and need new ones.

Next up, Almudena.  A lot of the museum history was lost on me, since the displays were all in Spanish, but I enjoyed seeing the different vestments and processional pieces.  Many of the crosses and other things were inlaid with diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and other precious stones.  Pope John Paul II said mass in the cathedral (2011?), when he was in his later years, and they had video of it.  I actually climbed the stairs to the top of the dome, and looked out over Madrid!  The sanctuary of the cathedral itself was not all that interesting. 

Then I headed back toward the hotel, taking a detour to the Plaza Mayor to see what was going on there (most of the weirdos had picked shady spots just outside the plaza instead of  out in the blazing sun).  I got some lunch, then came back to the hotel to cool off, clean up, and get ready for the tapas reception in a little while.  I have just enough time for a shower, but not a nap, which is probably just as well.

UPDATE:  Just back from the reception.  There are two programs this week, Gredos and Valdelavilla.  Marisa and Pete from El Rancho last year are going to Valdelavilla.  The Gredos group gets Julie (from the Pacific NW) and Daryll (from Singapore) as Master of Ceremonies and Director.  Unfortunately, I got to chatting with some people not going to my location, so I didn't meet everyone going to mine.  Ah, well.... I will meet them soon enough (8:45 a.m., in fact).  Unlike before, they aren't just using native English speakers as Anglos this time.  I talked to a guy from Italy, who now lives in Puerto Rico (and whose mother is a Hare Krishna!), and another from Egypt.  I also met Russ from N Ireland, Geoff from Canada, and Kathryn (I think) from England who, in her own words, is "actually quite deaf".  Huh?  That ought to be interesting.