We flew from Venice to Madrid on Saturday, July 9, 2022.
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| Approaching Madrid |
It was wonderful to see Nico and Mari again. That afternoon they made us some great Romanian food.
It was hot that day in Parla.
Meanwhile, Linette and I went with Mari and Nico to a mall.
After the mall, we drove to downtown Madrid and eventually found a parking spot. Sometimes in Europe people park close together.
Mari and Nico introduced us to Parque del Buen Retiro ("Park of the Pleasant Retreat"), which was kind of the "central park" of Madrid.
Nico and I stood in front of the Monument to Alfonso XII, who was king of Spain from 1874-1885. He was nicknamed "The Peacemaker" (El Pacificador). His widow, Maria Cristina, held a national contest to design a monument to him, and the winning design was erected here.
We also spoke with the daughter of Jesús. She spoke English pretty well, and she laughed when Linette told her that I last time I had told Linette "I met Jesus at church today".
Alan taught us that until 1967, Spain only allowed two religions. At that point, it finally opened up, and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints could finally operate there.
We walked around to the gate and went onto the temple grounds.
Due to the convex shape of the building, if you stand on top of the pillar and sing opera towards the building, people can hear you clearly 100m behind you. (That's not true at all, but I thought it would be funny if we could spread that rumor and trick people into trying it.)
On the west side of the Plaza de la Armería is an overlook. Apparently there is a big section of woods where nobody was allowed to build, which keeps the view nice.
Opposite from the Royal Palace is the Catedral de la Almudena. When the capital of Spain moved from Toledo to Madrid, they wanted to build a huge cathedral, but got distracted by all the things going on overseas. They finally started building this one in 1879, but building was halted by the Spanish Civil War until 1950. It was finally completed in 1993, when it was consecrated by Pope John Paul II.
It seemed somewhat simpler and less ornate than many of the cathedrals we had been to in Europe. But it was still huge and impressive.
I liked the sculpture of Jesus as a youth.
The ceilings were colorful in an interesting way.
The decorations were done in various styles.
Many people walked up the stairs to pay a visit to the virgin there.
It was fun having Alan explain what we were seeing. He told us some of the history of the various kings, battles with the Moors, and so on.
Here's Sienna's thumb, showing that we successfully visited that cathedral.
Next we went down under the cathedral to the crypt, where many notable people are buried, including Mercedes of Orleans, Queen of Spain (1860-1878).
And others more recently.
The cathedral looked cool from down below with its spires and many angles.
I liked this cool blue star-shaped pond.
These arches under the bridge were impressive.
Since Vespas were such a big part of the movie Luca that we watched in Italy, Isabel got Alan some Vespa socks. She chose this spot to give them to him.
Apparently the guy on the fourth floor is illegally renting it out, so the guy on the third floor has a sign declaring this and pointing up there, "Hey! They're renting the 4th floor illegally!"
After a few more sights, we stopped at Plaza Mayor, the big main square in Madrid.
Shaylee had recommended that we try "Llao llao" ("yow-yow") frozen yogurt, so when we came across one, we were in.
It was pretty tangy. It took a few bites to get used to it, but then I loved it.
Alan was explaining some things to us while counting on his fingers, and Isabel started counting on her fingers, too, to make fun of him. :)
Here's a little video of that going on.
This stone slab in Madrid marks the "0 kilometer" point from which distances are measured in Spain, especially the country's six national roads, A-1 through A-6.
So lots of people take a picture of their foot on this point, kind of like people do at the Four Corners point in the U.S.
The symbol for Madrid has been a bear since at least 1212 A.D., but in 1222 the church and city claimed the forest and fields in the area. King Alfonso VIII decided that the trees would belong to the city, and the animals to the the church, so both parties would feel a responsibility for taking care of the area. That worked for everyone, so they made the symbol for the city be a bear and a "strawberry tree". (Of course, strawberries don't grow on trees, but they really meant madroños, which do). Here's a sculpture in the center of town (in a construction zone at the moment) of the bear and tree.
And there are metal plates like this all over that also "bear" the same symbol.
There were some pretty cool looking buildings downtown.
I think this was a bank that was built in the 1920s. The horses and chariots on the roof are cool.
This building is the Palacio de Cibeles (Cybele Palace). Believe it or not, this was once the post office! (And the telegraph and telephone headquarters). It was finished in 1919.
It is now occupied by the Madrid City Council.
Here's our whole group.
I thought this was an iconic shot with a red Madrid double-decker bus in front of the Cybele Palace.
Alan knew I liked sunset pictures, so we caught a bus and then ran to get to an overlook he knew about. There was still a bit of sunset to be seen.
Here you can see the Royal Palace and the Madrid Cathedral in the background.
We also went and looked at an Egyptian temple, The Temple of Debod, which was originally built in the 2nd century B.C. It was removed from an area that was about to be flooded by a new dam in Egypt, and transported to Spain, where it was reconstructed, brick by brick. Egypt donated it to Spain in gratitude for Spain's help in saving the Abu Simbel temples from flooding as well.
Isa made a little pose here.
So Nico did his version of it.
We really enjoyed our special tour of Madrid.
The main cathedral looked cool lit up at night.
Alan knew of a place to eat, so we walked through a park to get there, while the sunset kept doing its thing.
For some reason, all the street lights in the park started blinking randomly, just as a bunch of police sirens were going off around town. Sienna took a video of it while I murmured, "Take...me...to...your...leader...."
Here's my 7-second video of it.
It was such a pleasant evening.
Just as being pooped on by a pigeon in Italy is supposedly good luck, so is stepping in dog stuff in Madrid. But this sign assures people that "Luck is to have a clean neighborhood" (so please pick up after your dog).
We started walking through a pretty dark area with graffiti, and I asked if it was a safe area. Alan assured me it was. This graffiti did make me wonder, though...
Finally we arrived at the restaurant at 10:49 p.m. "It shouldn't be crowded," Alan told us, "because we beat the rush." Apparently 11pm is a more popular time to start eating.
This restaurant was special to Alan because his grandpa took his mom and her sister there when they were young, and then his family had reunions and such there.
We got a variety of food and then passed it all around, including sausages, chicken, fried potatoes, bread, and more.
We got desserts that were all great, including cheesecake and lemon custard.
The desserts were wonderful, but they did cause us to miss the last train back to Parla, so we had to take a metro partway and then catch a late bus.
We started out a little crowded on the bus, so we had to stand.
That was painful so we sat in the stairwell.
We finally got home about 1:30 a.m. and packed a bit before going to bed.
On Monday, July 11, 2022, it was time to say good-bye. 😢
Nico and Isabel went with us to the airport.
We so appreciated the hospitality of Mari, Nico and Isabel during our stay there. What wonderful memories!
We flew to England on British airways. I had a great conversation with a gal from South Africa, who talked about which national parks were best for seeing animals and such.
Here is some of England coming into view.
A sign said "Making an international connection? Follow me!" After following that, another sign said, "International connection service closed. Pick up your bags at bag claim and check them." Our bags weren't coming out, so I asked someone and they said, "Oh, if you checked them all the way through, then you don't need to pick them up. You should hurry to your gate." So we ran for it.
Sienna got a little nervous when Linette and I both disappeared for a bit while waiting to board our flight for New York City.
Sienna really appreciated the English mannerisms.
We all got on our flights no problem.
On the way to Europe we felt like we were supposed to try to eke out some sleep, but on this flight, the strategy was to stay awake. So we watched movies the whole way!
While we were off in Spain and Italy, Jared and Mikayla were on a BYU study abroad program, studying photography and church history in England, Wales, Scotland and Italy. They, too, had a wonderful time and saw many, many wonderful things. (We were thinking it would have been great to leave something for them behind a secret brick or something in Venice so they could get it when they got there, but didn't think of that in time.)
When we got to New York City, Sienna and I just wanted some easy quick food, so we went to Wendy's, though it turned out to be a pretty crummy one. We ate back at the hotel room, and then I found Sienna asleep with her phone in her hand. I pulled it out to charge, and she didn't wake up. Apparently our strategy of staying awake until night in the new time zone worked well.
Tuesday morning, July 12, 2022, we decided to go do baptisms at the Manhattan Temple. We grabbed a bagel from a street vendor along the way.
The gals were cute.
We took the subway most of the way to the temple, and then walked the last few blocks to get there.
We had a nice time at the temple, and then took the subway all the way down to the 9/11 memorial.
The 9/11 Museum turned out to be closed on Tuesdays, but we enjoyed visiting the outside.
We went to a highly-rated restaurant, found that it was not air conditioned and not what we were wanting anyway, so we went next door to a Thai restaurant and found it to be wonderful.
Ever wonder why some buildings have fire escapes on the outside and others don't? When they realized that buildings really needed a way out in a fire, they bolted fire escapes onto the outside of existing buildings, and then required new buildings to have fire stairwells built inside.
Sienna wanted to look through the hole in this sculpture.
The buildings were tall in Manhattan.
As we wandered, we stumbled across the Trinity Church and its graveyard, so we sat in the shade and just enjoyed the relative peace there. (I suppose you could say we rested in peace).
The old tombstones were interesting. This one from 1743 spells "lies" as "lyes" and has a skull with wings on it.
Trinity Church was first built in 1698, but was destroyed in the Great New York City Fire of 1776. The second Trinity Church was built in 1790, and the current one finished in 1846 and was the tallest building in the United States until 1869, as well as the tallest in New York City until 1890.
It is no longer the tallest building in New York City.
After showing proof of COVID vaccination, we were allowed inside, and it was beautiful and peaceful in there.
Sienna learned that Alexander Hamilton's grave was supposed to be in the Trinity Churchyard, but she didn't have much luck finding it.
Then after going in the church and exiting into the other side of the church yard, she found it!
Next to his grave were the graves of his wife, Eliza, and his son, Philip.
About that time, I got a text indicating that our 9pm flight out of Newark was delayed, and that we could switch to another flight for free if we wanted. I found that there was a flight out of JFK at 4:30pm, so I texted Delta support (since wait time on the phone was an hour), and they switched the flight for us right away.
That suddenly meant that we had to bust a move to make it there on time. So we took the metro up to our hotel to get our bags. Along the way, a helpful guy told us we needed to take the Long Island Railroad instead of the metro to get to the air train, because it would take 20 minutes instead of 45, even though it was like $8 more. (He turned out to be a police officer and gave us a police patch).
So we grabbed our bags and hopped on the Long Island Railroad.
We walked and ran and made it to our gate with about 15 minutes to spare, so we wouldn't have made it on the metro.
Sharon was kind enough to pick us up from the airport that evening. She also turned the A/C on for us the night before so that the house wouldn't be 100 degrees when we returned.
It was great to be home.
The trip was wonderful. We got to see some amazing things in Toledo, Segovia, León, Oviedo, Los Picos national park, the beach of Las Catedrales, A Coruña, Santiago de Compostela, Ávila; Rome, Civita di Bagnoregio, Siena, Cortona, Pienza, Monteriggione, Florence, Venice and Madrid.
One of my favorite parts of the trip was the people we spent time with along the way, especially Isabel, Maria and Nico. And we loved spending time with our daughter Sienna as she prepares to transition to college life.
Thank you for sharing these memories with us.
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