Today's travel adventures take us firstly to the Royal Palace of Madrid. This is free for EU citizens today, and thanks to a lovely and generous billete vendor, husbands of EU citizens as well. Score!
Reading the history behind why the palace was built, it basically amounts to a tinkle contest between the royal families of the various countries to see who can build the most extravagantly over the top monument to themselves. This place has 2800 rooms. That means you could sleep in a new room every day for nearly 8 years before having to start over again, by which time you had probably forgotten what the original room looked like anyway.
It is today that we begin to realise what we may have been doing wrong all this time, regarding meals anyway. When we were in Italy, the place we were staying provided breakfast in the form of a voucher for a cafe across the road, which allowed us one sweet pastry and a juice each. I think some people do the same thing in Spain, but not quite as much, and most probably have normal breakfasts. Anyway we ordered 2 sandwiches (quoted from the menu – yes, sandwiches), and the guy brings out these toasted sandwiches that would be more at home for breakfast. Basically I think we've been ordering afternoon tea for breakfast and breakfast for lunch. No wonder people have been looking at us funny.
It is just after this breakfast-lunch that we come across Mingo Sidra's Chicken restaurant, purportedly one of the finest chicken restaurants in Spain. D'oh!
In our remaining travels for today, we find, among other things, Calle de Segovia, which has the dubious honour of being one of the most popular places to commit suicide. Leading to macabre comments like “Ooh look that must be where they all jump from! Hey that is a good spot!”.
We had been shafted by our tour book earlier in the day, when it said that the Templo de Debod was open until 15:45. We arrived at the park in which it is located at around 13:45, but stopped to have a little rest as the park is located around 1000m above sea level. At least it seemed that way. Anyway we headed over after catching our breath, only to find that it actually shuts at 14:00 and doesn't open again until 18:00! D'oh! We return however at 18:00, and as it turns out we took about half an hour in there in the end anyway.
Templo de Debod was an Egyptian temple built around 2400 years ago. It's continued existence, along with many other historical monuments', was threatened in the 1960s, when plans were drawn up to construct a large dam in Egypt, that would see this temple and many other sites permanently submerged. Many countries kicked in with financial aid to help relocate the important sites. The nations that helped the most each had an item donated to them by Egypt, and Spain received Templo de Debod. I forget where the others went now, I'm pretty sure the US got one, and I think one of the Scandinavian countries possibly.
Anyway there are a number of hieroglyphics on the walls of this temple, which have so far lasted over 2 millenia. That's pretty cool.
We end up going back to the same place where we got our deal with the jar of Sangria for dinner. It is just as good the second time around, actually a bit better because we ordered even more food this time :)
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