Madrid; Sunday, 11 June, 2006

After another plentiful breakfast, I headed out into the pleasant morning sun, with a light breeze, making 19 feel very pleasant, knowing full well that it was rapidly going to rise from there.

First stop of the morning was the museum of the city (Museo de la Ciudad). The museum tells the history of the development and building of the city, with lots of very big models of individual buildings, and of city areas. There are also exhibitions dedicated to the development of the Metro in Madrid, the history of EMT (The Madrid bus company), Telefonica (The national phone company) as well as exhibitions on Bajaras airport, the national nuclear industry, Gas Natural and Phillips (I didn’t think they even were Spanish).

From there I headed south to the Royal National Mint, and after getting through security (they didn't speak any English, I only spoke pleasantries in Spanish, it was all down to International sign language and common sense!) visited the museum. The museum tells the history of money from its earliest (and strange) forms, through the Greeks, Romans and other settlers is Hispania up to modern day, tracing the development of the Pesos, Euro and other nationalities currencies (cue the obligatory 100,000,000,000 Mark note circa 1930 Germany).

A quick zip across town took me to the Templo de Debod. A genuine 2,200 year old Egyptian temple, that was shipped brick by brick (carvings still intact) to Spain in the 1950's. The temple is bizarre looking totally out of place, and at the same time fitting into its surroundings in a large park. Inside there is still lots of the original 2000 year old carvings to be seen as well as a small exhibition on where the temple came from.

I then walked, what turned out to be quite a long way, along the road to the Museo de America, museum of the Americas. The museum traces the history and culture of the Spanish speaking American nations (Mexico south, ignore Brazil and a few other small ones.) The museum is packed with exhibits, but I only got there (after the extended walk) with 45 minutes to go before it closed (most museums shut down by 2 or 3pm on a Sunday) so I only managed to get a brief glance over most of the exhibits.

I walked back part way, giving up when I spotted the Metro station. I caught the Metro back over to Plaza Mayor for a late lunch, before heading most of the way back (I only realised what I was doing after I switched auto pilot off as I sat down in a cafe in Plaza Mayor) to go on the Teleférico.

This is a cable car (of sorts) that links the massive Casa de Campo park with the almost centre of Madrid. The park houses the Zoo Aquarium and the theme park, but the main reason was just for the ride, which offers stunning views over both the park and the city. The journey itself takes over 10 minutes and covers nearly 2.5Km

After some time at the Casa de Campo, I caught the cable car back to the parkland on the city side, and stopped there for a while, before wandering back to the square in front of the royal palace for a very leisurely dinner, and to watch the sun go down over the mountains. After a sunset stroll through the park, and with very weary feet I wandered back to the Metro station and caught the metro back to the hotel and a bucket of cold water to stand my feet in!