The front desk provided Esmé with a guide to what would be open during the holy week and we based our decisions on its contents. For this bright Wednesday we chose to tour the Palacio Real then go to the monastery (bones! bones!) again.
It was an adjustment to know that we could no longer take our time, that we would be leaving on Friday early in the afternoon, that we had to see what we wanted to see now while we still could. In the lobby, a tour group of American teenagers had their itinerary posted on a large placard and it was not enviable: eat breakfast, get on bus, tour Prado for one hour, get on bus, tour Palace for one hour, come back to hotel for lunch, get on bus to El Escorial, stay there a couple of hours (must be special), come back to hotel for dinner.
We took the metro to the Palace and found the courtyard full of people waiting in line. We switched gears and trotted to the relatively new cathedral next door to hope for a dissipation. (But presumably not a dispensation) The cathedral was glaring white inside and some of the chapels were empty. It didn't seem to have any bones.
A priest was hearing a full frontal confession but he still sat in the box. There were so many people milling about and killing time that it didn't seem like a real place of Catholic worship. The Stations of the Cross were pictorial so Esmé explained them all to me. (To her credit she seemed to remember her childhood training quite well, stumbling only slightly when she was confused as to how many times Jesus had fallen already.) Little bars with crosses (with dagger points) went over the plastic light fixtures.
The ceiling was a fanfold, painted with misleading patterns and only by looking at the unfinished parts could one tell if it was leaning in or out. That was the best part of the building.
Now the line was shorter and we stood in it to wait. The queue moved quickly and before long we were putting our things through the mandatory X-ray. I tried to insist on a hand inspection for the film but was thwarted. Oh well, I didn't really think there would be any harm, but if there was at least it would damage only a few rolls.
After purchasing tickets allowing us access to all tourable buildings, we found ourselves outside in the courtyard proper. First we went to the Royal Pharmacy. This was neat, if not a little too spic and span. Many of the beakers had aging extracts still in them. Any pagans worth his herb garden would have coveted the ownership of just one shelf from those rooms.
We detoured the crowd flow by going into the Armoury next. Once again, the mail suits were astonishingly small. Given how fast children grow out of their clothes, I was surprised that armour was made for child royals, but not surprised by the many different sizes they had as they grew. There were some attractive longbows, but the best part was the little suit of metal for a dog.
Finally we went in for the main palace tour. While waiting for an English guide (a free optional service which seemed to be a good idea), I discovered I was wearing my shirt backwards. So, I stepped behind a pillar and turned it around. I will state again here that at no point in our travels did I ever clip my toenails in public.
Our guide spoke in careful English, using some seemingly archaic pronunciations but with complete poise. With the Palace being such a popular tour it was hard to believe that official functions took place at least once a week in some of the rooms.
My impression of the Palace created no lasting memories, mostly jumbled thoughts of gold lacquer, gaudy clocks, and French furniture. I liked a few things, such as the story of one of the mural painters who painted with two hands. Otherwise, it was all stale. The room with the Stradivarius violins was interesting -- how often does one see such a relic, let alone 5 -- but the only items which really interested me were the gossip and some of the meticulous decorating. For example, the silk wallpaper that had to be taken down to be cleaned, a process so careful that it wouldn't be finished for years.
Now we could say we had been to the Spanish Royal Palace and on that note went to lunch.
There was the usual wandering around looking for something appealing. We settled on a smart little restaurant whose credit card machine was broken. After a minimum of gesturing and everyone holding their ground, the maître d' found a newspaper with currency rates and agreed to exchange Esmé's traveler's check. What was particularly nice was that he mistakenly did so at the seller's rate, thus rewarding us with more pesetas per dollar. And once this solution to the payment problem was found, he became very gracious.
We had not strayed far from the Palace so the monastery was just down the street. Trot trot trot, off to see the glorified people parts.
Alas, it was not to be. The monastery was closed until after the holidays. No bones. Perhaps no bones ever again. It is said that a good vacation leaves you wanting more.
We still had the afternoon ahead of us, so we headed to the Archæological Museum. It was nifty, and much bigger than I expected. It would have taken days to appreciate fully, and we only had those few hours. All kinds of historical periods were represented. I liked the mosaic floors (I didn't know you weren't supposed to walk on them -- oops -- everything in Spain looks old, it's hard to tell what is valuable) and the skeletons with their jewelry. There was so much it was hard to digest and eventually I took to resting on the little sofas while trying to drink in the theme of the whole room at once.
Esmé may pick on my Spanish accent, but my vocabulary is good enough to understand "gato". And so it was with full comprehension that I stood looking at cases of mummified cats. True, there were some embalmed people, too (it was fascinating to look at them then at their X-ray posted nearby), but the cats were interesting. The whole Egyptian section was good. That and the Roman exhibits were probably my favourites. Esmé purchased some slides of an intricately carved ivory cross that represented Jesus with huge, hollow, spooky eyes. It was a familiar piece, but I don't recall where I've seen it before. Eerie, anyway.
On the street by the museum cars were double-parked along the whole of the road. It would drive me nuts if I lived there.
One of the Colón metro stations had a walkway that went past the Wax Museum. Esmé wasn't interested and I'd already been to Tussaud's in London some years before, so I didn't mind not going. What was fun was playing with the silly mirrors outside the place. Also outside was a large, plastic fortune telling machine shaped like a gypsy woman, beckoning passers-by with her almost-heaving bodice.
For the remainder of the afternoon we rested. Soon enough it was dark and time to visit Esmé's "surprise".
Up and down and around and around the streets by the hotel we walked, looking for it. She had actually found more than one place, but one appeared to have gone out of business since the night before. Now we couldn't find any. I mentally noted the pizza place, though. That sounded good.
When we did find it, all Esmé had to do was open the door and I knew I didn't want to go in. This was my big surprise? It sounded like a bar full of noise and people. Ew. I wouldn't go in. Esmé, upon discovering that I didn't follow, came back outside, all confused. She had seen this British-style pub and range of odd beers and thought it would be Just The Thing. My kind of thing.
Nay nay nay. Really? Really. We popped back around to the hotel to plan the next move.
After much battering, I conceded that eating first would help us make plans. Even though Esmé didn't think the pub had been that noisy, I was still easily overwhelmed by any disruption to my convalescence / introspective immersion.
Of course we went to the pizza place (because it was close, not because I was persuasive), which was more of an Italian restaurant (even better), and there we sat in the small wood atmosphere by a cabinet with old books inside. Some were by Cervantes, apropos given that this was also the name of our cozy sup-house.
Afterwards we did go to the pub and I liked it very much after all. We shared a half-pint of Bass, sitting on little stools and listening to The Waterboys. It was dark and friendly in there although with our second half-pint we shifted seats to the little room off to the side. I'd brought the little Fuji beanbag face. It sat by the lamp and beamed upon us.
Notes
- Photos from the trip (temporarily unavailable - need to move them to Flickr)
- Trip report started April 1994, finished 10 January 1995, with minor revisions (spellcheck, privacy considerations) 9 July 2004
- Regarding those privacy considerations, "Esmé" was not the name nor the implied gender of the person traveling with me.
- I was 24 when I wrote this trip report and my writing style was going through an especially stuffy phase. Forgive me. I'd edit it, but I can't stand to read it.
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