A much nicer day, weatherwise, so left the brolly at home. The group (minus Irv, since he’d seen it all already) met for an early morning orientation tour with our tour leader, Luis. It was a different experience being out when the city was just starting to come alive - not many people around and almost a quiet hush over everything. Even though I had covered a fair bit of ground since we had arrived on Wednesday, I did learn a thing or two, such as the fact that the madroño tree which is part of the city’s symbol along with the bear, is actually a strawberry tree. And I know, you’re going to say that strawberries don’t grow on trees! But there is a tree, the madroño, that bears fruit much resembling a strawberry and Luis showed us some in a park across from the cathedral. They make a lovely liqueur from these fruits,
Most of the group opted to get in line for tickets at the Royal Palace, while the rest of us headed back towards Puerta del Sol. But not before a stop for churros y chocolata from San Gines. I declined, since I had already stuffed my face yesterday, and wandered back to the hotel to join Irv in his late breakfast.
This trip I had tried to pick things that we hadn’t seen or done last time we were here. One of those things was a visit to El Retiro Park. This is a beautiful greenspace covering some 1.4 sq.km near the edge of the city centre. It belonged to the Spanish monarchy until 1868 when it became a public park. It is very near the Prado Museum and has gardens,:monuments, galleries and an artificial lake where you can rent rowboats and go for a leisurely ride around the pond. In 2021 it became part of. UNESCO World Heritage site. We only managed to cover a small portion of it, but what we saw was beautiful and it felt so wonderful to be away from the hustle and bustle of the weekend pedestrian traffic elsewhere in the city.
For dinner we opted to try a nearby restaurant that Luis had recommended, Taberna El Secreto. It was great to sit out on the street, just enjoying the ambience, not to mention the great plate of nachos we wolfed down! As we left for the hotel, we stopped by a shoe store that had some screaming good deals on shoes, so we both ended up buying a pair - Irv some new court shoes and me a cute pair of ballet flats (6 euros)! The requisite stop for a helado and that put paid to another wonderful day in Spain’s capital.