Sunday in the Park.

September 24th. Sunday in the Park.

I can not imagine a better way to spend a sunny Sunday afternoon that strolling around a beautiful park amidst trees and water.  That's exactly what we did. Retiro Park has been around since the 1500's, once the private domain of royalty is now a beautiful and relaxing public providing a backyard for the thousands of residents of urban Madrid.. It is a massive 300 acre greenspace park.

Children run and play in the playgrounds. Families picnic beneath towering shady trees.

The centre piece of this magnificent park is the Crystal Palace, built in 1887. It is used for exhibitions and special events and sits, fairytale-like, with a small lake and fountains. Turtles, ducks and geese enjoy the coolness of the pond on a hot day.

At the end of the park is a man-made lake called El Estanque. Here a huge towering statue and monument to King Alfonso XII of Spain dominates the area as small rowboats float around the lake. You can rent a rowboat for an hour for 8 Euros. (PS. It is not as easy to row a rowboat as it might look since you are sitting backwards and can not see where you are going!)

Another large exhibition hall exists where various art exhibits run, currently between exhibits we were unable to visit it.

An ice cream to cool us down, and we are on our way to the Reina Sofia Art Museum to see a famous Picasso painting called The Guernica.

This famous painting was done during the early days of the Second World War when Franco, who aligned with Hitler and Mussolini, agreed to allow Hitler to test a very devastating bomb on one of the small Spanish villages named Guernica. Picasso depicts the devastation as the village is annihilated. It has become an iconic work to depict the effect of war and sits in this Contemporary Art Museum in Madrid.

Come With Me as we head to Granada and the iconic Alhambra....