Royalty has arrived

It's hard to believe, but we are almost half way through our trip now. These last three days have flown by. Today, believe it or not, included a lot more walking.

Our morning started with an impromptu scavenger hunt as we tried to go to the Royal Palace of Madrid. Having bought our tickets for entry last night, we first went to the "pre-purchased" tickets entry, and were told we needed to go to the "groups and Madrid Card" entry - all the way on the other side of the castle. Once we headed over to that entry we we were informed that we had to go pick up our "Madrid Card" at a tourist information center, which happened to be about 10 minutes away (half way between our hotel and the palace). We head to the tourist office, only to find out that we need to go to a different office, which was closer to the palace. About an hour later, we were finally inside the castle.

The entry goes to a large courtyard, and on the opposite end was a lookout across the city where you could see for miles. To the left you could see the sprawling city and on the right you could see forest and even mountains in the distance.

Also, in a fenced off area of the courtyard, there was a peacock. We didn't really learn anything about why the peacock was there, but it was a cool site. Once we scoped out the entire courtyard, we went inside the palace for the tour. Unfortunately, pictures weren't allowed - but Andrew was able to snap one quickly near the entrance before a guard came by.

The palace was so ornate and beautiful. It felt like we were in there forever, yet we only saw a small portion of the entire building. Some of the unique things we saw were a large painting of the royal family, that took 20 years to finish. It was commissioned in 1993 and not finished until almost 2013, only a year before a new king took the throne. Another room was covered entirely in porcelain. The banquet room had a table that was so long, it could fit about 50 people. The throne, crown and sceptre, made in the 1600s were on display as well. Walking through the palace felt like walking back in time, it was really fun to see. 

After the palace, we went to get traditional tapas for lunch. We first tried to go to an outdoor restaurant in Plaza Mayor, but it was too busy, so we found a place on the walk back to our hotel. The food was really good - I especially liked the croquettes. Andrew's favorite was a dish with egg and french fries. We spent the evening walking and shopping in the area north of our hotel. There were a lot of American stores, and most of the employees spoke english. The area we walked through is a big avenue that is closed off to cars (for the most part) so it was nice to just walk through the streets. We then got slices of pizza and salad for a quick dinner, so that we could head back to the hotel early. We are surprisingly used to Spain's eating schedule. Lunch isn't until 2-3 and then dinner isn't until 8 or 9. 

Tomorrow we head off for Porto Portugal, so we are calling it a night early tonight. I'm excited to see another country and be on the ocean tomorrow. Hopefully we will have some great pictures on tomorrow's post! Hasta luego!

- Kenzie & Andrew