Back in Madrid with added lemon pie

Yesterday was a full travel day. First through the winding, narrow roads around Lake Como and then a flight from Milan to Madrid and back to the bosom of the family.

Today we headed into the center of Madrid to the Temple of Debod. This is a simply weird sight in that it is an ancient Egyptian temple that was given to Spain, as thanks for help with the Aswan Dam, and transported from Egypt to Madrid. There’s something deeply weird about an ancient Egyptian temple in the middle of a modern European city.

From there we wandered down to the Palace Gardens; a pretty, green haven. The Palace is an absolute mosh-pit of tourists with one of the longest queues for entrance known to humankind. In the Gardens we saw only a couple of locals sitting on benches chatting or reading. We also encountered the royal robot lawnmower.

But we are tourists, so we girded our loins and headed to the Mercado San Paulo for lunch. This old market is now home to a great range of tapas bars. We ended up eating lunch in a bat outside the market because it’s fundamentally impossible to sit down inside, but we did get coffee and an amazing lemon tart inside.

While we made our way back North to Bob and Ana’s place the weather closed in – the fine sunny day became a dark thunderstorm and upon exiting the metro station we were confronted by a wall of rain. After dithering for a while we decided just to walk and get soaked – a decision reinforced when we met Ana’s brother-in-law Oscar who, speaking as a local, concurred that things were not going to get better. We got thoroughly drenched.

Tonight is a big time to be back in Spain because the Spanish football team is playing Italy. Vamos Espania!