Spain, day two

We spent Saturday in Madrid. We got an early start and took the train into Atocha Station. We saw la Puerta de Toledo y la Basilica de San Francisco el Grande. We had a quick picnic before heading over to la Catedral de Santa María la Real de la Almudena. It's very impressive; I have never seen a cathedral that is quite so modern, or so full of primary colors. I was interested in the museum upstairs, as well as the interior of the dome which is painted with an alchemical theme.

The Royal Palace is right across the street from the cathedral. It was mind-boggling. Each room was different from, and more elaborate than the one before. I just can not get my head around the idea of one family living in that kind of opulence, while their subjects wore burlap and routinely starved to death.

After about two hours of that, we wandered out through the royal gardens and la Plaza Oriente. We made our way to el Temple de Debod, by way of el Teatro Real y la Plaza Mayor. Debod is an Egyptian temple that now sits in the middle of a park. Katie says that the Egyptians wanted to build a dam, but it would have flooded the temple. So they just packed it up and shipped it to Madrid.

Spanish food of the day: Bocadillos. These are really just sandwiches with interesting toppings, e.g. goat cheese and tomato, jamon serrano (thin slices of dry-cured ham), or tortilla.
Rosquillos de Alcalá are a kind of flaky pastry-doughnut made almost exclusively in Alcalá de Henares.