After breakfasting at the hotel, we boarded our bus for a tour through Madrid. We saw the Royal Palace and walked the grounds of the Plaza de Espana, the city’s main square. The day was a bit chilly, but the sun finally came out and it was lovely walking around.

Our guide, Juanjo, told us a lot of history about Madrid and told us many interesting stories. He also told us that Spaniards eat lunch around 3:00 in the afternoon, and therefore, dinner isn’t started until around 9. The restaurants open early to accommodate tourists, but stay open late for the Spaniards, who don’t eat much beef, preferring to eat fish and chicken and they eat a lot of vegetables and fruits. Olive oil is a big commodity and Spain manufacturers and exports most of the olive oil in the world. He said, however, olive oil is getting very expensive to purchase.

The afternoon was ours to do what we like, so Kelly, Jim, Allan, and I visited The Prado museum. The museum is huge and although we tried to see most of the famous paintings, we spent a lot of time going up and down stairs and walking across from one museum wing to the other.

We saw many Goyas, Rubens, and a Rembrandt. We also saw Diego Velazquez’s “The Feast of Bacchus” and also his “Las Meninas”. There was also a famous painting by Bosch entitled “The Garden of Earthly Delights.”

There are over 2,000 paintings on display and you could spend months studying them all, but I think we saw some of the highlights in the three hours that we had.

And then…Good news! When we’re arrived back from our touring, our suitcase was awaiting us in our room. YAY!!

At night, we had the Welcome Dinner which was very nice and tomorrow we’ll be taking a tour to El Escorial Monastery.