Queue Up: Nat King Cole’s Madrid

Long night, long day, a lot to talk about so I’ll get right to it.

Last night, at Mark’s encouragement, Peter and I peeled our butts off the bed and headed out to photograph sunset. We had a location in mind, but thought we would explore some of the old city before we got there.

Imagine, the Las Vegas Strip and NYC’s Times Square collided and exploded all over New Orlean’s French Quarter….and the debris zone was blocks. That was what we walked through last night. Thousands, and thousands, of people, some dressed as human beings, many others not, enjoying the evening. I think it is typical for people to take an evening stroll before dinner. To see and be seen, and of course to show off their fabulous clothes, or in some cases a gorilla costume, a teddy bear outfit….you get the idea.

We had picked out the Temple of Debod in Parque de la Montaña, or Park of the Mountain for those of us still working on our Spanish. It’s an ancient temple from 200 BC gifted by Egypt to the Spanish in 1968. A little thank you gift for helping them rescue monuments that were threatened by flooding. I’ve always wanted to see the pyramids in Egypt, and I thought this would be a little amuse bouche for when I might get to see them. An ancient monument, a pool of water, beautiful sunset light with pink clouds in the background…a photographer’s dream. Nope. Not last night, the pool was drained, no water, and there were at least 20,000 people in the park by Peter’s estimate. It was like a musical festival in a park; people selling beer out of styrofoam coolers, buskers playing songs, tons of people milling about. You get the idea.

We muscled our way to the fence line, captured a couple of images of Madrid’s Cathedral, and started the long walk back to the hotel. Good thing this is a cultural trip and we didn’t try to set up our tripod and big camera’s up there, I might have had to pull out my Mean Mary voice.

This morning, we met up with our tour guide, Yolanda. After walking us through the old city and pointing out noteworthy landmarks (like our hotel was a favorite of matadors and celebrities in the 1960’s) and tapas bars (the best patatas bravas are around the corner), we ended up at the Royal Palace.

This was the third royal palace we have toured since we have been in Spain, and it is still in use today for formal functions. President Biden was here in 2022, and Yolanda mentioned every US president has been hosted here at least once during their term. The handsome royal couple I mentioned a few days ago have decided to live outside the city center in a wooded area in a small-ish mansion.

The decor in royal rooms were mind blowing. Perhaps the most visually arresting pieces were the chandeliers. There are 700 in this palace. One of them, in the king’s dressing room, weighs in at 1 ton. As we were gazing up at it, we made a comment about if it were to fall from the ceiling, and our guide immediately suggested maybe we should step out from underneath. By comparison, Buckingham Palace, has 26 chandaliers.

But to be fair, Spain’s Royal Palace is the largest palace in Europe. Let me share a few other stats about the King’s crib. It is1.4 million square feet, and has 3,400 rooms. I can’t imagine who is in charge of the housekeeping, especially after 7,000 visitors tromp through there every day.

It’s nice that it is a living museum that is also used for state functions. Well maybe that’s not right. In the Royal Chapel there was a body in a glass coffin tucked behind the royal thrones. It is the body of Saint Felix. A Christmas gift from the pope. I’m thinking I would prefer a nice bottle of holy wine.

While we are talking about dead bodies, Yolanda also pointed out the resting place of St. Isidro (he is at a church that we passed on the way to the palace). He did many miraculous things which made him a saint, but his death was also remarkable. Some decades after dying in 1172, his body was exhumed and found perfectly intact – not corrupted. He is now in a silver coffin in the church and is the patron saint of Madrid. While we are on exhumation, Yolanda mentioned they have lost many important bodies here in Madrid. Joseph Bonaparte (maybe Napolean III, my fact checker said the title was inconclusive) thought there were too many cemeteries and not enough parks, so he had the bodies in the cemeteries exhumed and placed in mass graves, and nobody has a record of who is where. It makes the errors on Peter’s wine inventory look less egregious.

I’ll let the photos do the rest of the talking about the Royal Palace.

After a lunch of tapas that ended with a complementary aperitif that arrived in unmarked bottles, we were off to the Prado.

The museum does not allow photos. I think, in part, to ensure people keep moving along and to sell more postcards, of which, I purchased a few to show you some of the memorable, but not all, artworks we saw. For example, Goya’s black paintings were on display, but no postcards were available. He was an amazing portrait painter and favored by the royals. Look up his painting of Saturn and you will get a sense of why this series of paintings are on the lower level in a darkened gallery. He made the paintings on the walls of his home in his later years when he suffered from depression. A Frenchman saw the abandoned home and thought they might have value. He had artists scrape them from the plaster walls and reinforce them. They are large and haunting. A postcard wouldn’t do them justice.

In our latest chapter of Adventures in Hygiene, I would like to return to the humble facial tissue. If you have been following our travels for awhile, you know I have an issue with places that don’t provide, what we commonly call Kleenex. Before leaving home, I have resorted to extracting a huge mound of them from a Kleenex box, crumpling them up in my purse or pocket and hoping they last the entire trip, so I don’t have to buy the industrial stuff found at every corner mini-mart. When we checked into our hotel, I was ecstatic to find facial tissues with a silver cover. And then I couldn’t get them out. I removed the cover and found something that was more robust than a paper towel. Peter complained he couldn’t even get it up his nose.

I’ll leave you with that image for the night. Tomorrow, we go to Toledo.

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