The photos below were all taken all on street level, on foot, over two sunny late November days, during walks in Sol, Gran Via, El Retiro, La Latina and Austrias neighborhoods of the capital of Spain. (Side note: you might be thinking, “Oh no, didn’t you go there to run the Valencia marathon? Why were you walking around so much in the days before it”, let me assure you that the walks were just the average taper week activity, and I did run that marathon in 3:20:52 after all).
These are photos of palaces, parks, statues, churches and streets largely constructed when the Habsburgs ruled Spain, which at the time meant that they ruled the world. The Habsburgs, not satisfied with having a larger empire, also decided to compete with their French counterparts to build palaces and parks in Madrid bigger and better than the Louvre and Tuileries. Well their palaces and parks are bigger… but beauty lies in the eye of the beholder and in the eye of this beholder beauty lies in Paris more frequently and more ubiquitously than it does in Madrid — though Madrid is still in my top3 EU favorites and I will revisit it.
I had first visited Spain in 2016 and returned from the trip knowing that I liked Madrid and wanted to revisit it. My memory from that trip is that I felt that Barcelona was like any other big cosmopolitan city in the west, but Madrid felt like a unique place. I guess my tastes are similar to those of the Habsburgs and not Gaudi (sorry Barcelona). Or, considering that Paris is my favorite place in Europe, and that the Habsburgs were inspired by (inspired is a euphemism here for trying to imitate and outdo) Paris when they built the Madrid that I walked around in, perhaps this is just more Paris love from me. Either way, it was easy to walk many miles in Madrid and it was easy to take these photos below.
Plaza De Sol -- advertised in tourism books as the heart of Spain
The Royal Palace and the streets of Austrias, La Latina and Sol
Gran Via
El Retiro
Statue of the Fallen Angel -- a very melodramatic man judging by his pose
This park was built by the Habsburgs for themselves -- though now it's open to everyone and ducks own it.