Sun-Ling was always in love with Madrid, John not so much. However, on this visit John took a liking to the lively yet peaceful Madrid city center. Most streets are vehicle restricted, or vehicle free. City buses are quiet, electric or gas, and sized to fit-the-street (see photo below). Young folks zip around on electric scooters but there are no roaring, polluting buses, and robotic lawn mowers are taking care of the Royal Lawn (see photo below). I'm guessing we'll be back.
Guess who's coming to Madrid this summer?
We are enjoying the fine selection of mushrooms in Spanish grocery stores.
The highlight of Wednesday was seeing this robot lawn mower cutting the lawn at the Royal Palace Gardens. First a photo, then a 25-second video.
We were lucky and happened to be in Madrid for nine-times-a-year "Solemn Changing of the Guard" at the Royal Palace that showcases uniforms from past eras, and horses.
Here's a 2-minute video, shot by Sun-Ling, that shows all the participants in the Solemn Changing.
The Royal Botanic Garden is adjacent to Atocha Station and close to our hotel. The tulips were attracting much attention.
We also liked the greenhouse and the exhibition at the onsite art gallery.
No visit to Madrid is complete without an early evening stroll to Puerto del Sol.
Our hotel was also near the Caixa Forum with its captivating design and Green Wall.
Stay tuned for our next post from the City Walls of Avila, Spain.
Sun-Ling and John have been traveling the earth since 2008 while blogging, eating vegetarian and vegan, and riding public transportation. We love uphill day hikes, 20th-century architecture, Roman ruins, all bodies of water, local markets, shopping for groceries, aqueducts, miradors, trip planning, blablacar, and more.
Search This Blog
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Most Recent Post
Qatar: Doha
Doha is another bonus visit for us. We picked a long itinerary that gave us 18 hours in Doha, then Qatar Airways canceled the original fligh...
Most Popular Posts of Last 30 Days
-
Chaozhou By John and Sun-Ling Meckley Copyright 2006 In search of warmer weather after a very chilly December in Shanghai, we headed to ...
-
"Are you from Norway?" asked the breakfast buffet hostess at our hotel. "No" I replied. Sun-Ling and I both thought it ...
-
Wuxi, situated just 26 miles from Suzhou, is another ancient city boasting a written history dating back 3000 years. It is also the cradle o...
-
Sapa first got on our radar when we were in Hanoi in 2002. Since then we had traveled much in the area in China , right north of Sapa. I was...
-
John: We left Subotica, Serbia heading north to Hungary on an antiquated self-propelled one-coach train that barely made more than 20kms...
-
From Rimini we rode the train south along the coast of the Adriatic Sea to Barletta. For more than 5 hours we watched the rainy, blustery sa...
-
On our second full day in Aviles, we made a day trip to the fishing village of Cudillero. There must be hundreds of villages like it on the...
1 comment:
Love the lawn mower! Afraid I'm in the "don't care for Madrid" camp, and I did make a return visit. Much prefer Lisbon.
Post a Comment