Month: March 2012

Konnie and I have become accustomed to the longer trips that we have been taking the past few years so one that lasts a week is merely a blink.  Our last day which had our best weather dictated a trip to the Real Jardin Botanico.  Unfortunately, almost nothing was in bloom.  So after a brief…

Wednesday was cold, yes cold, and wet so we opted to visit Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza.  This magnificent museum is built around the collection assembled by Baron Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza and his son.  It, as well as the Prado that we visited earlier, contain outstanding collections that are easily enjoyed by the casual art viewer. On a much…

The construction of Catedral de la Almudena was begun in 1879 but was not completed until 1993 making it an extremely modern cathedral by European standards.  Its construction was slowed by the Spanish Civil War, involved multiple architects and I’ll bet the contractor was changed along the way also.  It must be interesting to span…

So we started Monday later than we wanted but hopefully we are completely adjusted now.  We started the day at Arcade, the restaurant where we killed two hours on Saturday while we waited for our apartment to be ready.  As is often the case abroad, they treat us better on subsequent visits than we get…

Konnie and I left Denver on March 16th with my granddaughter Isabelle for this year’s spring break trip with her.  This time we headed for Madrid.  Isabelle, now 14 and in the eighth grade, has been in a Spanish immersion program in school so we thought this would be a good place for her to…