Madrid turns into a different place on the weekends. The people on the streets are more chatter-y, more relaxed on Saturdays.  After the wonderful hotel breakfast buffet, we went over to the Real Jardin Botanico, where we walked in, looked up at a really nifty pomegranate tree in bloom, were ready to take a picture of it… and then realised we left the memory card to David’s camera in my computer back at the hotel. Since reentry means repaying, we decided to use David’s phone camera instead. It actually worked remarkably well, since it has a macro setting and all kinds of cool stuff like that. Thus, the first few photos are courtesy of David’s Samsung Galaxy S III.

There were a few areas in the garden that were fairly barren due to soil renewal projects, so we didn’t spend real long on the whole thing, but we did go through several very nice areas. There was a phtography show in the little show building, so we went through that. Half of it was all about the human body, with a bunch of artful nudes and some semi-abstract composures. On the other side was an exposition of the evils of colonialism and such. Mostly French. Apparently the French weren’t very nice (big surprise).

We also went through the greenhouses. My favorite is the cold greenhouse, built in 1856. It is iron, glass and stone, with all kinds of ferns and a wonderful little pond. We also went through the desert, subtropical and tropical greenhouses, which held a few nice flowers. Ultimately we went and sat in a circle that used to house a positively gigantic, old wisteria 15 years ago. The plant is still there, but the bulk of it was cut back. I’m assuming a bunch of it died in the intervening years.

We went back to the hotel after the garden to get david’s memory card so he could stop feeling silly taking pictures with his phone while he had a nice camera around his neck (aren’t camera necklaces in these days? no? what do I know about fashion…), then set out across Madrid to the Temple of Debod. It may sound confusing that there is an Egyptian temple from 200bc sitting in Madrid just North of the palace, however, there is, and it is a really cool monument. In the mid 1960’s, when the Asuan dam was being built, Spain was one of the countries that helped Egypt move the old nubian temples that were going to be completely flooded out, most specifically the Abu Simbel temple. The Debod temple was already in the flood area, and remained underwater 9 months out of the year. With the expansion it would have been underwater all the time.

To thank the various governments who helped, Egypt donated 5 temples to the participating companies, with Spain getting the Debod temple. In 1968, when they received it, Madrid constructed a park around the temple reminiscent of an upper-class ancient egyptian house garden, complete with a screen of large trees, palm trees, and a little lake around the temple. They also built it in an East-West orientation, as close to the original orientation as possible. The temple is free to go in. It has 5 interior rooms plus a side room, a little granite idol holder, and a bunch of cool carvings. It also has an upstairs section, but that was closed off during our visit.

Once we had gotten our fill of ancient Egypt, we made our way to Plaza de España, where there is a bronze statue of Don Quijote and Sancho Panza. We headed back to our hotel down Gran Via and across a few streets we hadn’t explored yet, encountering some very nice 19th century architecture on the way. In that area, we encountered our first moros of the trip, but rather than pickpocket us, they instead chose to scare David. I guess he just smiles too much. For dinner we went to cafe/bar Plateria Museo, where we had patatas bravas, alioli, and empanada gallega de lomo.