Saturday's day trip was to Aranjuez, another city about an hour from Madrid. I enjoyed this trip much more than the last.
I got out much earlier and headed to the bus station...and it was the far station so I managed to purchase my tickets for this weekend. By noon, I was in Aranjuez. I purchased a 10 euro ticket to get a guided tour of the palace there and enjoyed the tour immensely...so many beautiful rooms! And lots of history. After that, I planned to visit the boat museum and Casa del Labrador (which has nothing to do with a dog BTW) because these were free with my tour ticket.
So...while I waited for my next tour a couple hours later, I went to a pizza place and got mini calzones...and they were pepperoni too! That is not something you find much in Spain. And I was able to wait out about half of the rain (which I was again unprepared for) there.
Then I began walking through the palace gardens to the museum of boats. What a beautiful walk...once it stopped raining (like 15 minutes later). The whole gardens reminded me of Parque Retiro in Madrid and wow...just walking those paths and spending time in the midst of nature...definitely a moment closest (Shout out to my CLC). It took forever to find the museum (not that it was hard to find because there were signs, but it was so far into the gardens).
I finally found the museum and went through the whole thing in 15 minutes...it was very small, containing maybe 7 boats used by the royalty and a few other related artifacts. After that, it was time to head toward Casa del Labrador, because I did not know how long it would take to get there. Again, a long walk, but on my way, I enjoyed the fall colors and even saw a few peacocks!
When I finally got there, I spent a few minutes talking with a cute old couple and then just sat around and waited for the tour. Upon entering, we were told that this strange house was actually like a mini palace used only during the day (so no bedrooms). We even had to put those surgical booty things on over our shoes to go in! Anyhow, this place was also beautiful - walls covered in silk, marble floors, beautiful paintings and ceilings, and many clocks.
After this, I walked the long distance back toward the center of town and looked for quite a while before I figured out where to catch my bus. Then I took a detour home so that I could stop at Sol and pick up something in one of the shops there...I was surprised by the sheer number of people there until I remembered that elections were the next day.
Got home about an hour before dinner. All in all, a great day and a much more interesting trip!
Photos to come...though lots of them will be photos of postcards of the palace because I was not allowed to take pictures and there were no postcards of the boats or of Casa del Labrador.
Peace and Blessings,
Melanie
Spanish Word of the Day: falua = some sort of boat, I think...that's what the title of the museum was and it was definitely a boat museum... :)
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