Our 300th Post: Anticlimax

Flying from Santiago that Friday afternoon to Madrid for a one-day stay just seemed anticlimactic. I mean, really – what were we going to do in Madrid that could possibly compare with what’d we already done? So when Kathie asked Jennie and me what we wanted to see in Madrid, all either of us could think of was Guernica.

We took a cab to the Reina Sophia Saturday morning in the rain. This sculpture greeted us in the courtyard. I want to say it’s an Alexander Calder but I have absolutely no basis for that other than intuition.


And these paintings I’m sure are of scenes along the Camino. Or was everything looking like the Camino by now?




Kathie suffered through the Picasso stuff until finally we came upon Guernica. For some reason, I remembered the mural from textbooks as colorful – you know, like Picassos usually are. The greyscale images were much more moving than color could have been. Sorry, no photos allowed in the Guernica gallery!

We had lunch in the museum café. Here’s Kathie’s desert. (It’s not a Kathie trip without food pics.)


Back at the hotel, Jennie snuggled in while Kathie and I took off to see the palace, which is right down the street from where we were staying.


We didn’t see King Juan Carlos and Queen Sophia but we did explore the palace grounds a bit. As we were walking back along the street in front of the palace, we noticed some hubbub brewing. Apparently there was going to be a military band concert in the palace courtyard. A pretty girl in what looked like an usher’s uniform invited us to go in. I would’ve politely declined but Kathie’s always game for a concert. And a military concert? Kathie was not going to miss this.

As we waited, we checked out the spectators around us and noticed the peeps looking out from open doors on the upper floors of the palace. Who were all those people? The king and queen weren’t among them. Were they renters?

Finally, the show began. One by one, different bands came out to perform. By their uniforms, they looked like they represented different branches of the service. Check out this one though. What were they – the harem guards?


Before long, the rain returned, sending the performers running for cover. We found shelter in a breezeway behind our bleachers and waited for the rain to let up.


Later, Kathie and I hit a Greek restaurant for salmon – huh? – and went back to our room to pack up for the flight home in the morning. Kathie caught me snuggled in my fleece blankie finishing up Pillars of the Earth. (I’m only posting this pic here because she whined earlier today that I had posted the one of her by the Santiago marker but not the horrendously ugly one of me. Go figure.)


That’s it, kids. I’m all wrote out. G’night.