Madrid; Saturday, 10 June, 2006

After the thunder of yesterday, the air was much less humid and uncomfortable this morning. I headed back out to the Royal Palace, this time to look around the inside. The palace is massive, and only a proportion of it is open to the public, but it still is a large amount to see. In addition to the 25 or so staterooms (including the spectacular royal chapel with its domed and painted roof), there is also the royal pharmacy and the royal armoury that can be looked around. There is also a temporary exhibition space which, when I went, was showing an exhibition of religious paintings.

Next door to the Palace is the mighty Cathedral. There has been a church on this site since the 11th Century, so it's slightly odd to realise that the cathedral was only completed in 1981 and wasn't consecrated (properly made into a Cathedral once all its building debts have been paid off) by the Pope until 1993.

From the outside, the building looks much older than the inside (though it did take them over 100 years to build, so that could explain!). Inside it resembles a typical cathedral, except one that has been scrubbed clean. All the stonework is still light and new and the stained glass is all very modern.

I walked back to the other side of the square in front of the palace and caught the Madrid Vision bus. This open-top hop-on-hop-off guide bus runs on two routes around the city. The historic Madrid route starts by the palace and then it meets with the modern Madrid route about halfway around. Each route takes about 1 hour 15 minutes, and in the late afternoon sun is a very pleasant way to spend a couple of hours (and an opportunity to top up the sunburn!)

Having completed both tours I got off at Plaza Mayor, the biggest of the squares in the city, and had a wander, before stopping for a late afternoon bite to eat (by the time I sat down it was already long gone 4) and a bit to drink. After spending longer than I had thought I would there, and only leaving to avoid the large group of very drunken English football fans who had just staggered into the café after England's opening World cup match (and post match celebratory drinks!).

I wandered up the road to Plaza de la Puerta del Sol, a small square currently mostly taken up by holes for the refurbishment of the line 3 metro, where the statue of Madrid, a bear and a strawberry bush, is located. I then walked the short distance back down to the Plaza de la Villa to have look around, as it had looked very pretty from the top of the bus.

I caught the bus back round, from the Plaza de la Villa, to Atocha station, partially just to check to make sure they had left luggage lockers for Monday, and also to check how often, and at what times, the trains to Toledo were, just in case I wanted to go there on Monday.

Having checked all that, and with the time already heading towards 8pm I headed back to the hotel to drop stuff off before heading back out again to track down some dinner.