Prado, Retirio Park, Cookies and The Queen

 Hola, 

Today’s adventure started with a walk to the Prado Museum, one of the world’s leading Art Museum’s.  We had a time consuming glitch with the audio tour but that was solved by Jon buying the audio tour for 5 euros each - money well spent.  There is no photography allowed n the Prado so today’s blog is a little lacking for photos.  

Jon did sneak photo of the painting “The Immaculate Conception”.  

Taking the photo took great courage on Jon’s part as earlier his wings had been clipped when he touched an almost 200 year marble carving titled “woman with veil”.  (This photo is off the internet).  It’s hard to understand how someone could carve this bust out of a single piece of marble including the veil.

We walked to Retirio Park - think Central Park in New York and had a pleasant lunch overlooking the little lake.  

While retuning to our apartment we stopped to photograph the Covid 19 memorial in Puerto del Sol.   I reads:  “The Town of Madrid In Memory To The Victims Of Covid-19 and Especially To Those Who Died In Solitude”.

After a brief respite we journeyed out to find the Holy Grail, cookies made by cloistered nuns.  The process truly is unique.  The buyer rings an outside door bell.  When the nun answers, you say “are there any sweets today? (in Spanish).  The nun pushes a button and the door unlocks.  The customer then follows a hallway until we come upon the lazy Susan device.  We told the sister what kind of cookies we wanted, placed the money on the lazy Susan and spun it around.  Shortly there after it spun back with our cookies and change.   

At this point our little group of 6 split up. Cathy and I headed home and the other four decided to do a little shopping.  As Cathy and I walked through a crowded Puerto del Sol there were barricades and armed police.  When we asked the police who they were waiting for he told me “la reina’ (the queen).   We waited about five minutes and we were able to take these photos.  She was too far away for me to hear clearly but I think she was asking me about the ice bowl. 

I wonder what tomorrow will bring?