Madrid

There is no end to the amount of time you can waste wandering around the Internet.  A casual enquiry as to the rate for a room in a hotel I used to stay at in Madrid, Spain, sent me over many of the same routes and sites that I became familiar with during the four years I spent visiting and living in this wonderful city.

For instance, this is in El Retiro Park, which is the very center of Madrid.

The Madrilenos take very long lunches and I didn't always have a meeting arranged for that time.

When this occurred, I often used to take a sandwich to this statue - I never did know what it was for as Spanish history is as complex as English, and impossible to absorb in a short period.

I used to enjoy sitting here usually on a folded newspaper, as the stone was quite cold in the winter.

I think this is the central Post Office in Madrid.  (It might also be the Bank of Spain.)  It's typical of the ornateness of some of the architecture.  It's at a junction of traffic called Cibeles, with huge fountains.  It's also the gateway between the old and the new part of the city.

Just up the road is the gate of Alcala, which proudly displays bullet holes and scars from the civil war which took place in the late 1930's.

I was extremely fortunate to have been able to spend so much time here and the memories are still pretty sharp.  I hope to go back someday in the future.