It's Always Sunny In Paris: First full day in Madrid

Another great day in Spain. We started off with some cafe con leche and breakfast pastries(we've pretty much been having croissants filled with chocolate everyday for breakfast). Then it was off to the Prado. Wow, that's a big museum! We spent a few hours there, and could have spent several more. But it was lunch time! We headed out for some tapas. A few small sandwiches, some olives, pickles (yum) along with some unexpected anchovies (whoops), and something we ordered completely blind... And it was a miss. Still not sure what it was.

What is that bell shaped thing?

No matter! After lunch, we headed off for a quick stroll through the Royal Botanical Gardens, which were quite lovely but due to it being March and all, maybe not yet at its prime.

We worked up an appetite with the stroll (not really, just looking for a justification for what's next) so we went to a famous Madrid churros shop. There being two of us, we ordered two churros con chocolate. The chocolate was great-nice and thick and delicious. The churros were quite tasty as well... Only since we had two orders, we received 12 of them! The table next to us, also a two-some, were a bit smarter, and had two cups of chocolate and split a single order of six churros. Next time.

Reenergized, we headed off to Spain's Royal Palace. Very beautiful. Unfortunately, they don't allow photos of any kind (same with the Prado for that matter), but here are a couple of exterior shots...

Exhausted, we headed back to the hotel for a late afternoon siesta prior to dinner. Dinner was a mini- tapas crawl (of course!) followed by an awesome flamenco show.

Gazpacho