Sorry for not blogging so much, its just very busy at work so.... sorry again. Just be sure i will read your posts as much as possible and try to comment when I feel the need.
Last week it was fall-break here and my wife and I left for 4 days to Madrid, capital of Spain. We never visited Madrid but were in Spain several times already (at the coast twice and we visited Barcelona 4 years ago).
The flight was nice, 2.5 hours from Amsterdam so round noon we arrived in our Hotel, quite close to the Madrid Opera. A nice room, with bathroom and tv, what more you need in a capital.... In Holland the temperature already was quite low but here (round 12 degrees C/50 F) here it still was quite nice (around 22 C/70 F).
When we had unpacked our luggage we left for the Royal Palace, cause us was told that would be open..... pity it was not.... Well we made some pics of the building and decided to start a little walk in the neighborhood. What a nice and beautiful buildings. We took a pause on Plaza Mayor on a terrace in the sun..... really a holiday feeling, woow.
Round 4 pm we decided to do a "hop on hop off"-tour with a double-decker. It was a nice tour although i had better ones in Barcelona and Washington.At night we had a "tapas-dinner" in a restaurant of "meson cinco j's" (https://www.mesoncincojotas.com/index_english.htm).
The food was good, as first course we ordered Iberian sausages and Iberian Ham , croquettes of Ibarian Ham and a soup...all cold... all very tastfull but the next "warm" course was a bit disappointing, well.... we expected more....

Tuesday we left for the Prado Museum. There was a Renoir exhibition so we were pleased to have the opportunity to see it, it just started a few days ago..lol. After Renoir we saw a lot of Spanish painters like Goya and Velasquez. Beautiful painting from the past....
The afternoon we spent in El Retiro, the city park of Madrid. It was great relaxing there ....imagine sitting in the sun, eating a nice ice-cream and just do nothing....
That night, after again spending some time on Plaza Mayor on a terrace again, we went to one of the "eat-cafe's". We drank some wine , ordered some nice portions of croquettes, patates brava and canape (warm crispy toast with serrano ham). Again a great relaxing thing to do.
Wednesday another museum on our list, Thyssen. Here a great private collection of paintings from, mostly, Europe. Great building and a great "museum-shop". Next again, terrace-time in the sun and that night the usual visit of a nice restaurant ( Italian this time).

We only had 4 days in Madrid so it was a short one. Thursday we made a nice walk through the center visiting all kinds of original shops, like a shop where they sell wooden and linnen handfans, a shop where they produce original capes, an original handshoe shop and more.
We enjoyed a great final lunch, took a last terrace on Mayor and left for the airport round 4.30 pm. A nice and relaxing short holiday came to an end.