By Monday, our last full day in town, we were feeling well satisfied with what we'd seen and done in Madrid, and didn't have too many pressing map markers left unvisited. We took our time in the morning to let the city wake up and open its various businesses, then walked south through the big nearby cemetery. It was old and sometimes ramshackle but generally stately; we found a big chapel building that was unexpected and stunning.
We metroed back into the centro district and navigated the narrow, crooked streets to the quiet little Plaza de Conde de Miranda. Following the instructions we'd read beforehand, we went through a small wooden door, along a short hallway, through a tiny courtyard, and down a couple of steps to a large wooden turntable set into a wall. We greeted an unseen voice, asked for a box of nevaditos, and placed a bill on the turntable. It spun around to show a small white box of cookies and our change.
Such is the process for buying sweets from the cloistered nuns of the Convento de las Carboneras del Corpus Christi, which prevents them from having to interact with the outside world. The cookies were delicious: salty and biscuity, but the icing sugar on top was perfect.
Next we visited a shop selling traditional Spanish pottery. The owner was happy that B spoke Spanish and asked where we were from, then chatted with us enthusiastically about his wares, which are made by families who've passed their techniques down for centuries.
We ate lunch at the same market we'd gone to on day 1, and L even got the same croquetas, because they were very good. B got more exciting tapas: cod foam & caviar, octopus & potato, pickled herring & avocado, and cod with butter sauce. They were great.
Our next metro entrance was surrounded by another protest for school funding, similar to the ones currently happening in France and Italy; we walked underground just as they were cheering about having unfurled a big banner from a construction scaffold.
After getting some help with a complicated ticket purchase from a gruff but friendly station attendant, we took a series of trains about an hour southeast of town. We had to cross an off-ramp after our path ran out at the end of a pedestrian overpass, but we made it into the Parque Regional del Sureste. It was, again, a warm and beautiful day, and the landscape was again dry and scrubby but beautiful, with lots of bunnies hopping around. We finally saw storks wheeling overhead, L finally saw the brilliantly coloured kingfisher that B had spotted the other day, and we were surrounded by chattering little birds and loudly warbling grebes.
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