June 20 - Arrival in Madrid

We flew in with a connection at Schiphol in Amsterdam; our flight to Madrid was a little late. We took a cab from the airport and got to the hotel around 1:30P.

We're staying at the Best Western Premier Hotel Santo Domingo. The room is small but inexpensive - they claim they have wireless internet but I don't get a signal in the room. By a little after three we'd unpacked a bit and washed up. Its warm here, probably in the low to mid 80's. As we walked it started to rain - very interesting, it rained wide space, big drops for a few minutes and then stopped, over an over again during the afternoon. I went back to the hotel to get my hat and Aviva's umbrella.

The sign for the Hotel Santo Domingo
Front and back of the entry key for our room
The subway entrance at Santo Domingo

First up was Convento de la Encarnacion. We hung around for 1/2 hour for the tour to start - they only let you go though with a tour guide. And the tour is in Spanish; we finally gave up and left.

There are street signs in beautiful ceramic tile all over the city

The main facade of the Convento de la Encarnacion

We walked past the Palacio Real. It wasn't open, some special event was going on.

A view of the Palacio Real plaza

A policia truck loaded with horses

We walked up to the Catedral de la Almudena.

An arial view of the Cathedral (lower left) and the palace (upper right)
A detail of the front facade of the Catedral	Central Door, south facade: Pope John Paul II during the consecration of the Cathedral
A wider view of the facade - the clouds were spectacular
I thought the pattern of the inside of the front facade was interesting
This is a view of the facade from the entry on the side
The interior was surprisingly colorful - this is a view of the main ceiling
Vaults of the central nave
The Chapel of the Virgin of the Almudena

Then we walked down Calle de Mayor to the Plaza Mayor. Lots of tourist shopping but a few other stores as well.

A painted building on Plaza Mayor

A detail of the painted building

A view down a street from Plaza Mayor

We then hiked back to the hotel, spent and tired from the heat, humidity and sunshine (not to mention the flight in). We ate dinner at the hotel - eating at 8:30P isn't normal for us, we'll have to figure that out as we stay here. The food was simple and good.