Wednesday July 5 – Italica and Madrid

Today’s featured site is Italica, a 2200-year-old Roman town with beautiful mosaics.  

The colosseum at Italica.

Then it was off to the airport in Seville for a flight to Madrid.  Our hotel in Madrid is two stars, the Hotel Monte Carlo, on the Gran Via.  Great location but with lots of traffic and noise, which thankfully calmed down at night.  

We had an early dinner at McDonalds.  This McDonalds had marble staircases, molding and medallions on the ceiling, brass handrails on the stairs, guards at the doors, and generally a very luxurious setting for a Big Mac.  

After dinner we took the metro to El Retiro Park where we spent 2 hours walking around.  The gorgeous Crystal Palace (a huge glass greenhouse) itself was closed for renovations.  

The Crystal Palace with its fountain in front.

But there was plenty of other things to see in the park.  

We found a beautiful rose garden with fountains, 

and a lake with boats that we rowed around in for a while.  

Everyone was tired from all the walking, and we all slept well.