Madrid!




For whatever reason, this bear is the symbol of Madrid.

  This is the swell room we had and the view from the tiny little terrace. 



directly across from our room


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to the left

 

and to the right

 Some of the swell buildings of Madrid.  They look great even in the rain:



This is a close-up of the top of the building in the photo above




If our Spanish held up, this is a phone company??!!  Sign said "Telefono" or something like that.

 Gene is an afficiando of finding the "baselines" throughout the United States, so he was thrilled beyond thrilled to discover "Kilometro Cero", the center of Madrid and indeed I think the center of Spain

Spain apparently loves trompe l'oeil.  This beauty was spotted only a short walk from our hotel room.  The Spanish also put up trompe l'oeil canvasses to hide construction sites in main tourist spots.  We really liked this one:


This was our final night in Madrid and for our entire vacation -- a visit to the (Guinness book verified) oldest restaurant in the world.  It has been operating on this spot since 1725 and played host to the likes of Ernest Hemmingway and Francisco Goya.  Pretty cool.  The meal was great, the service impeccable, the sangria perfect for a nice functional buzz.  I present BOTIN:



There are 3 floors.  We went up the stairs aginst the wall to the first floor. 



Don't order the suckling pig unless you want to see this brought to your table.  Didn't matter to me and I et it all!  Yum!