Madrid, part 4: El Centro

We started Saturday with a series of increasingly impressive churches.

The Basílica Pontificia de San Miguel was modestly sized but beautiful, with big slabs of marble running up the walls and across the arches. After we left, we found fantastic cinnamon (L) / cardamom (B) buns nearby, then walked on towards the centre of town.

The Royal Basílica de San Francisco el Grande was circular and ornate, with an enormous dome overhead and more Goyas and Titians in the capellas. We got to hear a few bars from the huge pipe organ as they warmed up for an upcoming performance, including a thrilling crescendo that gave us goosebumps.

We checked out the Arab Walls, ruins of the original city walls from the 9th century just south of the royal palace. The royal cathedral (Catedral de Santa María la Real de la Almudena) sits next door and uphill, but as we left the ruins we saw a side door to the crypts below, so we went inside. Surprisingly, the space is quite large and is actually also used as a functioning church for services.

Upstairs, the cathedral itself was stunning, with high ceilings painted in bright, modern patterns.

We pressed through the throngs of tourists waiting to visit the royal palace and continued north, taking in the ruins of an ancient Egyptian temple that had been transported and rebuilt in a nearby park. We found lunch at a nice little restaurant that specialized in delicious Spanish tortillas, which we could not finish, although we did find some ice cream nearby afterwards.

Already kinda tired but at least full, we took a metro to the edge of the huge Casa de Campo park that borders downtown to the west. It was yet another perfectly beautiful day, sunny but not too hot, so we wandered through the trees and scrubland for hours, finding some pretty cool birds (including a bright green woodpecker that spends most of its time on the ground, and not impossibly a Eurasian eagle-owl) as well as an area that featured occasional nude men just sitting quietly on the ground among the trees.

Beleaguered, we left the park with the sun low in the sky and walked along the river for a while. We stopped at a cafe for a cold drink; although Madrid opens up around this time and people don't eat dinner until much later, our standard travel pace has kept us from adjusting to the local timing -- we headed home, where B once again somehow had the energy to make a nice simple dinner.