My European Vacation — The Sights and Sounds of Madrid

Our second night in Madrid, a street band played outside our window in the Puerto del Sol. The quartet featured Peruvian flutes and played classics such a “Dust in the Wind,” “The Sound of Silence” and Abba’s “Chiciquita.”

I stepped out onto the balcony and, for a while, watched the people dancing and laughing to the music.

One of the things I noticed most about Spaniards was their passion for life well lived. Smiles and laughter were everywhere and at all times of the day and evening.

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A large double-decker bus system called Madrid Vision takes tourists throughout the city of Madrid. My mother and I took advantage and crammed about as much as we could into the two days we were there.

We saw a small part of the Prado, as well as a couple of other art museums. But what fascinated me the most, were the science museums. (OK, I know I’m a geek.)

Madrid is rich in archeological and biological history, and the museums we saw illustrated this well. At the Museo Archeologico we saw the skeleton of a giant sloth, one of the most important archeological finds in Europe. I stood there looking at its bones and tried to imagine what the Earth must have looked like when such giants roamed the land. When on all fours, its shoulder blade stood a good 3-4 feet above me.

The basement of the Museo Naturales was designed to look like a Victorian museum. The heads and bodies of sharks, deer, buffalo, bison and several big cats lined the walls of the spiral staircase that brought you down into the main room. In the center of the room was a glass display case labeled “The Garden of Eden.” Within the glass walls stood two skeletons — one male, one female, the latter holding an apple. They were surrounded by tropical plants and the stuffed remains of various birds and small beasts. It was like stepping back into times past.

Which was a feeling I often had when in Europe. There, even the stones beneath my feet are old and have tales to tell. There seems to be a castle, or the ruins of one, in every town and statuary around every bend in the road commemorating everything from war heroes to Greek gods to street performers.

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And now, with my short, quick introduction to the Spanish capital, I left both sad that I had not the chance to see it all and excited as I was going to Malaga to visit family I had never met but had heard about all my life.

Next Time … Malaga