Madrid, A Historical Walking Tour

Madrid, A Historical Walking Tour (10/24)

Today we went on a walking tour in old Madrid where we learned about some of the city history, its architecture, and culture.

Some things I learned today:

Over its history as a city Madrid has been a city surrounded by a wall. Four times, from the Romans to fairly recent times,  the city outgrew the walls so they were expanded to take in the new growth.

A number of the plazas that exist within the city were at one time associated with one of the gates into the city, either just outside or just inside the gate.

There's a large billboard advertising Tia Pepe wine atop one of the buildings adjacent to the Plaza del Sol. It was on another building for many, many years. When Apple Computer bought the building, they didn't want Tia Pepe up top so it was moved.

Any business that has been in the same location with the same name and performing the same service for at least 100 years is entitled to have a brass plaque embedded into the sidewalk out front, proclaiming such. We saw a number of these plaques on our walk.

The palace for the king and queen of Spain has over 3,000 rooms and more than 150,000 square meters of floor space (!) and is the largest palace in Europe, even bigger than Versailles.

The weather was much moderated today and it was a great day for walking. After the tour was completed we had a very tasty and beautiful lunch in a small bar (Inglan Brutal Bar), went to the grocery store, and strolled a bit more.

Tomorrow we leave our apartment and head north to begin our trekking tour the next day.

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