As I type this, I have 20 minutes before I have to leave to catch my plane for 3 days in Mallorca. So this is going to be a quick post. It's weird how much less time I have to blog this trip. I guess that's a good thing because it shows that I've been very busy.
The subject of this post is 4 cities near Madrid that I've gone to in the last two weeks. Aranjuez is a city about 45 minutes southeast of Madrid, and it's where the royal families used to spend falls and springs. It was a beautiful palace; I think more beautiful than the one here in Madrid because it's smaller, and it's easier to understand the layout. I'm also starting to understand how these palaces are laid out. There's a king's side and there's a queen's side, and they are almost perfectly parallel to one another. He gets a sitting room; she gets a sitting room. He gets a room for the King's Guard; she gets a room for the Queen's Guard. And if a Queen is the actual monarch, then they switch sides, and the royal consort, or whatever he's called, gets the Queen's side. It's pretty funny actually. It's also interesting to see who gets the better rooms. Since Queen Isabel II was the last monarch to use Aranjuez's palace, she decorated her side sumptuously, while her husband got the "lesser" side, which he then proceeded to redecorate so that they're nicer than hers. You can just imagine the competing interior designers trying not to get their heads cut off.
Outside of the palace are two beautiful gardens. One is a small highly sculpted garden right outside the palace. It's called the "Secret Garden," but I'm not sure why since it's so obviously there. The weather was gloomy and nothing was blooming, so the students with whom I went and I are thinking about going back in a few weeks to see it in its splendor. Even without beautiful flowers, it was pretty impressive. A much bigger garden, called the Prince's Garden, is across the street. It's basically a huge park right on the river, and it is really quite lovely; again, it would be nicer in nicer weather. In this garden, we went to the Museum of Royal Yachts, which was totally cool. I'd never really seen river yachts before, all of which are rowed, and it was interesting to see the 6 or 7 that they had.
If you're in Madrid, I think Aranjuez is worth going to.
The following weekend, I and a few students went to El Escorial. I've been there before, and I've blogged about it before, and since I'm running out of time, I'm going to skip it. But let's just say, it was better this time because I got to go through it at my own pace. It's King Phillip II's royal palace, and it's pretty amazing to see.
The following day the entire class went to Avila and Segovia. Both of these cities completely lived up to the hype. The walls of Avila were impressive, and walking through the old city and seeing places where Teresa of Avila hung out (as it were) was really interesting as well. Plus I got to see her preserved finger. (A little gross, I know).
Segovia was amazing, and since I'm now completely out of time, I'm going to have to wait to come back and write about that, plus Mallorca, of course. Loading pictures onto blogger has become extremely annoying. I'm clearly doing something wrong. But I'll figure it out and post some pictures too.
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