Madrid Day 2

We decided after spending 30 euro on the campsite which was dirty and very noisy that our money could be better spent, so we checked out, had a coffee at the restaurant at the gates and decided to stay on the road that night. We asked if we could leave the truck in the carpark as there weren't any parks on the road at that time of day, but the woman at reception said she would prefer it if we parked back inside the campground for the day. Suited us, so we did just that, before going out to catch the bus into town again. We had decided to have a good look around the city, and that evening to return to the Reina Sophia Museo where there was a temporary exhibition we had missed the day before, which looked interesting.  

The first part of our adventure was to go and look for a pharmacy which featured in our DK book, it was in Leon street, and was named Leon pharmacy and had interesting tiles of Leons on it. The reason for all the leons was that historically (not sure exactly when) the pharmacy was owned by a bloke who had imported a lion from India (not sure if he was Spanish or Indian), and he used to charge people 2 (whatever the currency was then) to see the lion, and from that came all the "leon" names. After quite a treck we came across the street, and then the pharmacy, took photos before moving on. 

The leon pharmacy

One of the tiled pictures

From here we walked around looking at buildings and statues before settling on a bench across the road from the building below, where we ate our lunch, watched the guard on duty wondering what he was guarding, people watched and tried to guess where the passersby were from (who knows if we were correct) before posing for photos. (It turns out this is the Spanish Parliament which is why there was a guard on duty).  

Next stop was the fountain below which is in the middle of a roundabout, a very flash roundabout in fact called Plaza de Cibeles. We had seen it the day before, but despite having taken photos of it i had missed the fact it was lions pulling the chariot, so I was keen to have another look, and it was on our way to the park we wanted to visit anyway. The myth is that Cybele the graeco-Roman goddess of nature (the woman in the chariot) asked two men to do something for her, they refused so she turned them into lions, and their destiny was to forever pull her around in her chariot for daring to refuse her wish (some stroppy sheila eh?). 

We retraced our steps of the day before slightly as we headed back up past the Puerta de Alcala (below) which is a ceremonial gateway created or erected by (not personally I'm sure he had minions to do the hard work) Carlos III in an attempt to improve the look of eastern Madrid. It took over 9 years to construct, beginning in 1769, and is made from granite.

Right next to the Arch is the Parque del Retiro, which in 1632 was a private park for the royal family, whose palace was in the gardens.

Various scenes within the gardens

The park from the road, with traffic whizzing by

Sun setting over Madrid (about 6pm)

Reina Sofia Museo/art gallery where we went to view an exhibition  that evening (free from 7-9pm)

Two of the pieces from Boetti's exhibition which is a combination of geography/cartography, political science and  embroidery/art work. He has made pieces/ based on the politics of countries, and used statistics about rivers (length etc) and perspective to create these rather beautiful and colourful works.

It was after 8 by the time we had finished here and we still had a forty minute very brisk walk back to the bus and a twenty minute ride back to the truck, so we made tracks. We recovered the truck from within the campground, parked on the now clear road outside and settled in for a quiet night.
Little did we know things didn't quieten down as where we were parked was on the one way in and out of a logistics centre which had deliveries coming and loads going out to serve Madrid and the rest of Spain all night long, with huge trucks rolling by and rattling/shaking the truck and our nerves all night long!!!!