Today we met our guide, Fran, at 11:30 at the hotel lobby. We set off for the Royal Palace of Madrid, which was about a 15 minute walk from the hotel. Along the way, we passed through La Plaza de la Puerta de Sol, which is a large plaza in the center of Madrid. Sol has 7 arches leading out to different streets, and one of these arches took us right to the Royal Palace. The Royal Palace is open to visitors as a museum, even though it will still house the royal family when they are receiving dignitaries. It has 3,418 rooms (only a few are available for the general public to view, though) and it’s the largest palace in Europe. Our tour guide for the Museum, a nice fellow named Tino (short for Florentino) met us at the entrance, and from there we headed to the opposite end of the palace to see the view of Madrid from there. Even though it was a cloudy day, it was still an amazing view of the city. It only got more breathtaking once we headed inside, though. Just about every inch of interior of the Royal Palace was decked out from top to bottom. I got neck strain from craning my head to look at the stunning paintings depicting scenes from Greek mythology, Christianity, and Charles the Third’s ascension to the throne all over the ceiling, but it was worth it because I love Rococo-style art. Pictures weren’t allowed in many of the rooms, so I can only describe my favorite room in the Royal Palace, which was the Gaspirini Chamber. In this chamber, the king would get dressed by other nobles in front of the entire court. The ceiling had sculpted vines criss-crossed from one end to another, and each corner depicted a painted scene of Chinese figures going about their day. The wallpaper and mirror-framing fixtures were golden and incredibly ornate, with more greenery and flowers sculpted everywhere your eyes landed. A massive chandelier illuminated the room, and the green and black swirled marble floors matched the ornate decorations.

After the Royal Palace, we headed over to the open-air flea market, El Rastro. It was massive and almost overwhelming, with vendors selling anything from Nintendo t-shirts to crochet chickens to children’s mobiles. I saw countless stalls devoted to jewelry, secondhand clothing, trinkets, art prints, and dishes. The scene reminded me of bazaars that I had been to in Turkey and Uzbekistan. I almost keeled over in shock at seeing a rack full of leather jackets all priced at 15 euros! Unfortunately, most of the stalls began to pack up by the time we explored a few shops since we got there shortly before the market closed. We ended up liking what little of it we experienced enough that we wanted to try and visit it again next Sunday if we had the time to spare.