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TRAVEL BLOG ENTRY
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From Toledo we headed up the autovia to Madrid and driving through the traffic we really noticed that this is a major city.
Our campsite, Camping Osuna, was about a 10-minute walk to the Metro and from there about 45 minutes into the centre of town. We headed in our first afternoon to the Palacio Real, which was free on a Wednesday. This is a huge and very ornate building – some of the rooms have amazing details. There is a pretty good armoury with suits of amour and the like, including some suits for kids!
The next day we got ourselves a two-day open-top bus ticket that toured around the streets with a commentary in your headphones. A pretty good way to move around and get a feel for the city.
We visited the Reina Sofia gallery, which is modern art with a good collection of Dali (my favourite) and Picasso. I really enjoyed this gallery and even Ella was walking around ‘squawking’ at some of the sculptures ;-) Picassos famous Guernica is here but I must say it wasn’t really my thing. We also visited the Prado, which has a more traditional collection including El Greco and Goya.
Behind the Prado is Parque Retiro, which is a beautiful formal park with a central lake complete with rowboats. There was lots of entertainment inside including Spanish Punch and Judy – a bit confusing for Jay…
I didn’t have big expectations for Madrid and was very pleasantly surprised by how big, interesting and generally nice the city was. All this without even sampling the legendary nightlife!
Dave.
previous travel blog entry
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