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 improved weather Thursday, we decided to continue to see sights in the Old Madrid area of the city.  Our visits included the Basilica Pontificia de San Miguel which stands on the site of an old Romanesque church a block from our apartment that was constructed between 1739 and 1746.  From there we hit the Plaza de Oriente in an effort to see the Opera House (Teatro Real) but there were no tours today.  So on to Museo Cerralbo.

As we have learned elsewhere (such as the Soane Museum in London that we only found because of or friend Jacquie Martinez), it is not always the big name places that are the most interesting and Museo Cerralbo is in that category.  This 19th century mansion is a monument to Enrique de Aguilera y Gamboa.  The house is huge and gorgeous and the collection of "stuff" intense and endless.  Well worth a visit when you are here.  Lunch at Cascaras.

From there we headed to San Francisco el Grande, another unheard of jewel.  On the way there we hit the Muralla Arabe, a small stretch of outer defense wall that is all that is left of Madrid's Moorish heritage.  Anyway, unfortunately no pictures are allowed at San Francisco, but the interior is a remarkable building.  The artwork contained therein is spectacular including the magnificent frescoes on the dome and the dome is one of the largest in the world.  Larger than St. Paul's Cathedral and only outsized by St. Peter's at the Vatican and the Pantheon according to their literature.  A must see if you are in Madrid.  The tour is in Spanish and Isabelle did a terrific job of translating the highlights for Konnie and me and she again handled our communications with various vendors during the day.

This city has more restaurants than we have ever seen in a concentrated area.  We are a couple of blocks from a street named Calle Cava Baja and we counted 40 restaurants on that short stretch.  An excellent dinner at Emma & Julia's on Calle Cava Baja with generous treatment of us as their guests.  There you go.  We have killed Old Madrid this week hitting every highlight in the book.  Only one more day before the long trek home.

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 the evolving building technologies over a century plus.  In any case, in the Catholic cathedral tradition it turned out to be quite beautiful.

After a few stops at closed sites where the actual hours did not match those in the guide book, out Madrid exploration for the day included walking the Calle Mayor, Calle de Alcala and the Gran Via and then a walk through the La Latina area.  The architecture in Madrid is quite grand.

Lunch at the pricey Restaurante El Schotis on Cava Baja and dinner at La Camarilla, also on Cava Baja, where both staffs were helpful in guiding us through these crazy tapas.

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 treated when we frequent restaurants in our own backyard.

Then off to the Catedral Nuestra Senora de la Almudena (closed, we’ll try again tomorrow) and the Palacio Real.  The Palace is spectacular (no pictures allowed inside so few pictures today) with most of the decorative highlights being imported from Italy.  Then it was one of our walking tours hitting Plaza de Oriente, Jardines de Lepanto, Jardines de Sabatini, La Rosaleda Parque with its Templo de Debod, then past the Monumento a Cervantes (Don Quixote), past Plaza de Espana, down the Gran Via and back to our neighborhood near Plaza Mayor.  So far there is no comparison between the gardens here and those in London.

We had dinner at a Mexican restaurant called La Mordida de Fuentes (but they spoke Spanish so it counts!).  It did have many dishes that we do not see in the states.

Tuesday we will try to focus on the cathedral and other churches.  We’ll see how many we can catch open.

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 test the progress from her immersion.

And given that that there is far less English spoken her than I expected, so far her Spanish has worked well and been a big asset to us.  We spent Saturday waiting for our apartment to be ready and getting familiar with the area around our apartment in Central Madrid including two hours in a coffee shop where the proprietors did not speak English but somehow delivered to us everything we mentioned to each other that we MIGHT be interested in consuming.

After visiting Plaza Mayor, Puerta del Sol, Mercado de San Miguel and a “late” lunch at a lovely Tapas restaurant, we called it a day to make the time zone adjustment.

On Sunday we had a late start with lunch near Plaza Mayor eating outside at Kitchen Stories where we fought off a team of gypsies who were aggressively pursuing some of our food.  From there we spent the rest of the day at Museo del Prado before having dinner at Miau where Isabelle handled all of the communication with the staff.

The primary purpose of our winter break these past six years has been to escape some of our winter weather for a short while.  This trip accomplished that and not much else got done (other than work and reading) which explains the limited posts.  And returning to the same destination two years in a row also dictates fewer words and pictures.  But we did enjoy our time away as well as the time spent with our friends, Dale and Debbie Cummins from Liberty, Indiana and Lisa and Dave Wangsness from Big Canoe, Georgia.

But after a long discombobulated trip home that covered 28.5 hours from house to house, including an unexpected night in Chicago, we are back in Denver.  Time to plan for next year’s destination after a quick trip to New York City in a few days.

A few pictures to cover the last two weeks of our trip.

We spent Saturday at Smuggler’s Cove, a beach on the north side of Tortola about a mile from our rental house.  Upon returning from a snorkel, I entered an area filled with a giant school of smaller fish on which the pelicans were dining.  It caused me to ask myself, “what if I brought my camera into the water and stood here in the middle of the dining room?”  I did and below are some of my shots.  It was not easy to always properly focus on the subject given the water action on my arms as I held the camera at water level not to mention the obstacle of their speed and position relative to the sun.  But I thought these were almost good enough to share my experience.  Double click the thumbnail for a larger image.

We are taking a break from winter weather for the sixth year in a row with a return for the second time to Tortola in the British Virgin Islands.  We came here again because of the very peaceful nature of this island (no large hotels), the wonderful views from our rental house and its terrific owner.  There won't be many posts from here as we don't do a whole lot on this trip.  Mostly catching up on work, reading, enjoying the sun and surf and continuing Words with Friends contests.

We are joined this first of our four weeks by Debbie and Dale Cummins of Liberty, Indiana (my home town) for their fourth visit with us and will be joined at the end of the trip by our other four time guests, Lisa and Dave Wangsness from Big Canoe, Georgia though Lisa also has her childhood roots in Liberty.

We are staying at a place called Limeberry Villa which is owned by Jon and Katy Morley.  They are extremely accommodating landlords and last night they had us and the guests from their other rental property here to their home island of Little Thatch, a 54 acre island five minutes off the eastern side of Tortola that is owned by a British businessman.  It used to be a resort but he now has Katy and Jon manage it solely for his use (with the exception of its Seagrape Cottage which is still available for rental http://www.seagrapecottage.net/index.html).  Swimming, snorkeling, kayaking and self-made pizzas baked in their very own pizza oven.  It was a fantastic evening and we are grateful for their hospitality.

My daughter Kristin and her family are here from Phoenix visiting our house near Steamboat Springs for the week after Christmas day.  I am spending a couple of days with them to play in the snow with my grandchildren.  Today we spent the day on the slopes of the Steamboat ski area.  They need snow badly but it was a beautiful day as indicated by the pictures.

As you can see from the photos, the tag line that is currently displayed at the entrance to Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom is “Let the Memories Begin.”  But for Benjamin and me, it is more like “Let the Memories Continue.”

During the first weekend in December 1986, I took my then 8 year old son to Walt Disney World for the first time.  A Florida business colleague had told me that the best time to visit WDW was between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  And at that time he was right.  The place was nearly empty.  We had the run of the place including re-riding some attractions without having to exit because of the lack of patrons waiting in line.

And then there was the technology at Epcot which, in 1986, was able to be ahead of what was available to the general consumer and easily wowed both him and me.  We spent much time exploring the Epcot exhibitions.

That trip had an enormous impact on Benjamin.  We have returned many times but have made a particular point to go there on each five year anniversary of that first experience, sometimes even repeating photo opportunities that were first recorded in 1986.

So earlier in December, Konnie and I headed to Orlando to celebrate with Benjamin and Fernanda the 25th anniversary of that first visit.  Benjamin went to work at Disney (as a presenter in a technology exhibition at Epcot) in 1999.  He moved on to other entertainment areas at WDW until returning to Denver to finish college.  After receiving his degree, he and Fernanda moved to Orlando to pursue their dreams.  They both went to work for Disney.  Benjamin in areas such public relations, website development, social media and the like and Fernanda in Travel Marketing.  Benjamin started his own strategic development firm last year with Disney now one of his clients and Fernanda is now the Latin America Marketing Director for Disney Destinations.

I hope you enjoy some of the photos of our life connected to Disney over the past 25 years.

We are winging our way back to the USA as this is written. It has been a good trip other than the initial delay in receiving our baggage and the very expensive lesson, which I re-emphasize to anyone reading this, to avoid ever flying Aer Lingus. Aer Lingus’ hidden and costly baggage policies are not only very expensive for the consumer, they also contribute to Ireland’s struggling economy as was confirmed to us by an Aer Lingus employee upon our checking in to fly to London. She said not only are people not visiting Ireland as they used to (which was also mentioned by our taxi driver) but when they do visit, they don’t purchase things to take home because of the baggage restrictions. I took a second suitcase that was virtually empty with the intent of transporting such purchases but, at nearly $8 a POUND to take it on their airplane, we purchased nothing instead. Too bad for Ireland.

After our wonderful day of seeing Trinity College and the Chester Beatty Library, the remainder of our time in Dublin was spent visiting Christ Church Cathedral, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, St. Stephan’s Green and a few other sites around central Dublin. I need to mention that we did find two reasonably priced nice restaurants with food we would go back for if we were to return to Dublin. At Il Vicoletto, the no cheese salmon stuffed pasta was excellent (we ate there twice) and the spicy curries at the Nepalese Monty’s of Kathmandu (both in the Temple Bar area) also hit the spot. These two fine restaurants (along with the menus of other restaurants we explored in Dublin) also demonstrated how significantly overpriced (as in 40 to 50 percent) the food was in Waterford as I mentioned in my “Uneventful Day” blogpost.

Since we had a whole evening to blow on the way home by arriving at Heathrow airport the afternoon before leaving for Chicago, we took the Underground into the city and wrapped up this trip with yet another visit to Patara in Knightsbridge. Still our all time favorite after eleven visits.

Another twenty three day trip in the books. This was supposed to be a trip to Barcelona but we could not find an apartment location available for the entire time we planned to be there (just tonight we learned listening to the news in the taxi that was probably because of the last bullfights being held in Barcelona this week as it has now been outlawed there).

So we switched gears and decided to see Scotland and Ireland. Some simplistic conclusions: I like rail travel over air, I like Scotland better than Ireland and London is feeling like a second home. Too bad it is so expensive for Americans.

Thanks for following us. Our next major trip is back to Tortola in January for four weeks, primarily to escape that month in the northern hemisphere so there won’t be much new from there. Below are a few shots of our last day in Dublin and photos of some miscellaneous things I found interesting during the trip.