Sunday morning Madrid!

We are here! Tired from the flight and  the walk uphill to our charming hostel on Cervantes street (sans windmill). We've  already experienced jambon and manchego for lunch and a stop for ice cream at the Freddo Freddo.  I said I was coming for the food!

But the cathedral, the palace, the Prado -- oh my!
Cathedral de Nuestra Senora de la Almudena-has been one of today's highlight for me.  All sainted up with the requisite lingering incense which reminded Alton and me of our old Columbus home at St. James, an Anglo-catholic parish.  The gorgeous Mary chapel was off to the right of the main altar.  Soft chants played in the background as visitors and worshippers move quietly around the sacred space.
I enjoyed the brilliant colors in the ceiling, the graphic designs, and the stain glass. The ceiling was very contemporary-flames for Pentecost, bright blue stars above, and behind the altar brilliant, contemporary stained glass windows.
The Royal Palace was huge, bigger than I remember Versailles being, which is the point.  It is the biggest palace in Europe. Waiting rooms, etiquette room, study, lunch, a massive, fully set dining table.  Alton thinks it would work well for next year's Vestry dinner.  I don't even know what to pour  in the five pieces of stemware at each plate.  The opulence...at a time when so many had so little.   But I'm guessing each chandelier had its own maid to clean and polish all those pieces of crystal.  I wonder if that's also the case at Mar-a-lago?

But the Prado. Museodelprado.es. Oh Kathy Johnson, you must visit. Everything you told us was so true, and more!
  We each had a painting/painter to find - mine was Heironymous Bosch, The Garden of Earthly Delites.  Gorgeous, scary, weird, contemporary.  If you don't know it, please look it up.  It's worth your two minute Google.
Giant paintings, fatuously funny portraits of wealthy folks, El Greco, Velazquez, Titan, Both Goya's frightening and Rubens pudgy Three Graces, So much religious art, so many faces of Christ!

The Grace Pilgrims are tired tonight, all tucked in, and there may be some snoring.  Tomorrow we are back at it.  Check back to see what "it" is.
Can't wait!