Our place in Seville

While we liked our home exchange in Madrid, this place in Sevilla is so much more beautiful. It's the top floor of a very old three-storey apartment building right on the Plaza de la Incarnacion, one of the iconic areas of the city.

Here's the view out our living room window. It faces the Metropol Parasol, a modernist structure built in 2011 in an overlooked area mostly used for parking. Now it's a vibrant gathering place.

The apartment has two bedrooms and windows looking out in two directions, five in all, and each of them has a little Juliette balcony. It's a wonderful spot to watch the ongoing saga of the lives on the plaza.

Although it's noisy at night, there is air conditioning and double glazed windows (as well as ear plugs) so we can sleep in peace and quiet.  The top two windows in this photo are the kitchen and bedroom windows looking out on the plaza. Below us are two cafes and across the way underneath the Metropol Parasol is a large market. We're surrounded mainly by pedestrian areas so it's easy to walk around and see things.

Here are a few views of the sweet apartment for you to drool over.

Well maybe you won't drool over the stairs. It's quite a ways to climb with groceries.  

This morning we went to the market to look around and stock up on some food. It's a big open air place, very modern, although the shopkeepers here go back a long way. There has been a market in this area since medieval times.

Our trip from Madrid on the train was very fast, hitting speeds of up to 300 km an hour!

Here's another couple of views of the Parasol so you can get an idea of this size of this structure.

We're here for a week so we have lots of time to look around. Our only challenge is the heat. It was 32 C when we arrived yesterday. Thank goodness for the air conditioning.

From Plaza Major to the Caixa Forum

Today was our last day in Madrid and we made the most of it. We took the Metro back down to the oldest part of the city around the Plaza Major dating back to the 16th Century. For some reason these machines were bringing in turf to lay on the stones in the middle of this large plaza. We never did find out why.
























Here are some photos of the pedestrian areas and buildings in this fascinating area. It's full of centruries old bars and stores, definitely a draw for tourists but never felt too crowded.

We popped into this bar for a glass of wine and the proprietor gave us some mussel tapas and wonderful olives for free.

This place was where we had our morning coffee and pain au chocolate. The napkins on the floor are from earlier customers who simply drop them. Some establishments have square metal waste containers to collect this but obviously this one did not.

Young people congregate in this area too, not just tourists.

This bookstall reminded me of Paris. So do the sidewalk cafes and the ornate addresses and signs. And the gardens and the ironwork.

We happened on this old market building that has been refurbished beautifully. Inside it was a feast of food and drink.

There were stalls everywhere serving sangria, tapas, wine, cider, champagne and more tapas. Plus the usual vegetables and meat and fish. Apparently people in Madrid love seafood, even though they are very landlocked being in the centre of the country.

People were obviously stopping in after work for tapas and a drink while they picked up food for supper. 

This morning we visited the Convent of Las Descalzas Reales, a Franciscan establishment dating from the 1500s. I couldn't take photos--although I would have loved to show you the amazing frescoes on all of the walls and the incredibly beautiful wooden painted statues and the paintings. If you're ever in Madrid, make a point of going.

Our last stop today was at a very modern museum, La Caixa Forum, in a renovated power station featuring a living wall and a very modern foyer. This has shows about social issues as well as history. Fascinating.

. 

In case you think we did all this in one day I should let you know that some of these photos are ones that I took yesterday but had trouble getting off of my camera. I've fixed that little glitch now so you have the full picture of our four days in Madrid. We've seen a lot but only a fraction of the museums and sights of this fascinating city.  Tomorrow we're off to Seville on the train for the next instalment of our Spanish journey.

Cafe life, galleries, and wedding cake architecture

Madrid is a city full of open air cafes and restaurants. I'm sure it's because of the fabulous sunny weather here, as well as the Madrileños affection for tapas, beer, and sangria. We've been sampling all of these things in the past three days. Oh yes, coffee too. Wouldn't you like to join me here on a sunny morning?


This fellow looks like he knows how to live the good life, no?

Yesterday we did the hop-on-hop-off thing and saw some parts of the city that we might otherwise have missed. Notably the architecture of the Gran Via, built to emulate New York buildings before the turn of the last century.  Harry christened it "wedding cake architecture" and I think it's very apt.

The woman with the body of a lion could possibly be a decoration on the top of the cake....?

There are also lots of older buildings, now apartments lived in by normal people, although they pale in comparison to the rococo styles above.

Our last two days have also been filled with visits to arts galleries. Yesterday we visited the Thyssen Museum, home to the largest private art collection in Europe. Lots of treats there including a water colour by one of my most favourite artists, Paul Klee, plus paintings by Chagall, Degas and Matisse, among many others. Unlike the Prado, photographs were allowed at the Thyssen.

The Thyssen is also home to  ore contemporary artists.  Here's Harry looking around at some paintings. Sadly I can't remember the artist's name. We've probably seen too many to remember much. 

Today we visited yet another gallery. This one is the Reina Sophia, featuring historic and also contemporary art. We saw Picasso's Gurenica, truly amazing to see. The exhibit included photos of Picasso's work as the the painting progressed. It was interesting to see the changes that occurred as he worked on this piece. Photos were prohibited in that salon--but I'm sure you've seen them. It's really large, taking up the entire wall of a large room.

This afternoon we went to the old part of Madrid, the Plaza Mayor built in the 16th Century and all the wonderful buildings around it. I took a lot of nice pictures but I'm having problems downloading them to the computer so they may remain unseen. We really noticed some parallels between this part of the city and buildings in Mexico, which were built around the same time.

One amazing thing happened today. I was stopped by a couple in the elevator of the art museum, asking if I was Joanie. (It is my childhood name.) It turned out to be the sister of my ex-brother-in-law, Elizabeth West and her partner. They are visiting Spain because she was attending a conference. And somehow she recognized me--even though it has been over 30 years since we've seen each other. It baffles me how she could have identified me after such a long time and in such a different place--but she did. We had a quick visit in the gallery and promised to get together back home in Victoria.

Tomorrow will be our last day here and we'll return the old part of Madrid to visit a convent that Harry saw when he was in Spain 35 years ago.  I'm hoping to solve the photo issue so I can post more pictures for you.

Morning in the Retiro Gardens

We took a short bus ride up to Retiro Park, the largest one  in Madrid, originally belonging to the King of Spain. It's a lovely green space and it was spectacular today as the leaves are beginning to change and the air was warm, verging on hot, and there were not that many people there.

You can see that it's got some lovely old buildings, statuary and walkways.

The centrepiece is the lake where people of all ages were renting rowboats and drifting around on the water. Or hanging out on the steps with the ducks.









It's a civilized place with lots of open air restaurants serving ice cream, lunches, and drinks. We enjoyed walking around and then a lunch of wraps and beer. I have discovered a beer that I like here. It's Amstel con limon, actually I guess it's a shandy made with half beer and half lemonade. I find it pleasant and refreshing.

After lunch we headed down through a very elegant area to the Prado Museum where we spent an hour or so seeing some amazing European art from the 14th to the 18th Century.

It's art that reflects its time in the subject matter. Paintings of Mary and the baby, saints and devils, battles, court portraits, and Biblical legends aren't really our cup of tea. But we totally admire the artistry and skill that went into them. 

I saw a number of paintings that I've studied in my art history books and that was a thrill. But after a couple of hours we were saturated and took rest at a lovely sidewalk cafe.

I've been enjoying the use of the Ipad Mini, with a sim card that I bought in England. It allows me roaming in Europe so I can check the internet, skype with people, and find my way around anywhere even without wifi. What a bonus for traveling. Today I was able to chat with son Jamie via Facetime from this cafe.

Madrid is such a lovely city. I walked around this neighbourhood after dinner and saw people of all ages on the sidewalks, walking with their well-behaved dogs, or hand in hand with their elderly parents, or with their kids. On just about every corner there's a little playground area for children. This neighbourhood is residential and peaceful. There's not that much traffic either, because there's an excellent bus and metro system.  We're really enjoying our time here.