It had to be said a brief lamination inspired moment of terror notwithstanding my trip was as smooth and easy as a three flight journey can be. Turkish Airlines fed me honeycomb and clotted cream and topped it off with Turkish coffee and then while my eyeballs were still rattling around inside my head they deposited me in Madrid where clearing customs took less time than baggage collection. There are definite advantages to flying during the week.
Having transformed my hotel room from a smart little location to an elephant’s graveyard of shabby clothes in the blink of an eye I looked about for something to do to stave off physical collapse until nightfall. The next day I was booked in for a tour of the Prado museum and it seemed a sensible idea to wander up there the day before to get an idea of how long the walk was and to get the getting lost out of the way while I had time on my hands.
In my defence I only got lost once and not irretrievably (I obviously survived to make this post) and in more time than it takes to tell I found the Jardin Retiro.. Keen readers may note that I was looking for the Prado but the Retiro was right next door and a worthy target in its own right. It is a large public park with the usual collection of trees and signs warning you not to feed the animals. Hopefully birds don’t count as animals in Madrid because literally everyone seemed to be feeding them. I took photos of the more photogenic. “Photogenic being defined as those that stood still long enough to be photographed.
But the real draw card of the Retiro (apart from the Observatory, the Crystal Palace, random bird life and well sculpted nature) is the fountains. It seems that everywhere that doesn’t have a tree has a fountain. I had a particular fountain in mind and felt a ridiculous sense of accomplishment when I blundered across it. This is the Fountain of the Fallen Angel and is possibly the only statue to Lucifer on public display.
It was definitely worth photographing although paying twenty Euro for a potato omelette from the little shop nearby was probably unwise. On the other hand I may not need to eat again for the rest of my trip. There were many other handsome statues and some equally impressive ducks but simply attaching that photo was a strain on my somewhat disheveled intellectual state so you’re just going to have to use your imagination.
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