Madrid

Oh Madrid. I really loved how beautiful Madrid is and how beautiful the architecture is. I think I slightly preferred Madrid over Barcelona because it is so pretty but we enjoyed the things we did more in Barcelona so I guess it's a toss up. Either way they were both beautiful cities and provided great entertainment. 

 Plaza Mayor. A fun plaza right by our hotel. There were many restaurants and street performers. One of them was a guy who pretended to be missing his head. Calder thought it was rather funny.

 These are just random streets that we loved.

 Retiro Park. This was a beautiful park with well groomed gardens and a fun little lake. You could rent a boat and float around the lake but it was quite small and we weren't really sure what we would do with our stroller. It was okay though. We ran around and then as we were leaving we found the playground.

 The lake at Retiro Park.

 A beautiful church by the Prado Museum.

 The Royal Palace. This is the most beautiful building inside and out. I loved our tour of the inside and all the amazing rooms. I can see why the royal family doesn't live here anymore. I mean, you can't mess with George III's bedroom or study. And it is really close to the city center. I wish we could have taken interior pictures.

 We watched the changing of the guards in front and it was quite the production. There were over 100 horses and 400 soldiers. It was also quite long. Calder got a bit bored.

 This is the Temple De Debod. It is an ancient Egyptian temple. The hieroglyphics were really cool and it's hard to believe it is they started constructing it in the early 2nd century BC.

 The garden at the Royal Palace.

 Us in front of Almudina Cathedra. We didn't tour this one because honestly, it was way too expensive and neither of us were all that interested.

 The park behind the Royal Palace.

 Our hotel. It was really a sweet place to stay and so close to everything. Jason did an awesome job with our accommodations.

 We saw two protests while we were there. One was about public schools and the other was this one. I think it was about labor laws. They were nothing but efficient though. There were tons and tons of people but they were very well controlled by the police and there were street sweepers following along behind to clean up the mess. It was really great. You can tell how long the line of protesters were because in the first picture it was light and it was getting rather dark by the time they finished walking by. We were eating dinner at a restaurant at this point, so we just popped out to take a picture or two and then went back to our meal.

This is the cutest candy shop I've ever seen. The decor is all gold and the little boxes you fill with candy are also gold. It was very fancy. Calder and I had a taste of a raspberry candy and it was amazing.