An Egyptian temple in Spain??

Saturday May 14, 2011                               Day 318

I did my back exercises before we left the hotel, then we left for breakfast, and the metro. We arrived at Plaza del España, then walked to an Egyptian temple. The temple was donated to Spain because that country sent its master stonecutters and masons to Egypt to help rescue several archeological sites which were otherwise doomed to be flooded by rising waters behind the Aswan dam. This particular temple was one of the doomed artifacts. It constitutes one of the few works of ancient Egyptian architecture which can be seen outside Egypt and the only one of its kind in Spain.

Hieroglyphics inside the temple.

View from the rear of the temple west across the countryside beyond Madrid

Near the temple was a splendid rose garden, and we spent an hour or so educating ourselves about the difference between hybrid tea roses, floribundas, and other varieties. There was a lagniappe of an orchid show inside an atrium in the garden, so we strolled through it enjoying the vast variety of orchids as well.

An amazing pair of trees in the park near the rose garden

Water lilies in the rose garden

View of the rose garden

An arbor ran about half way around the garden

Near the gardens was a gondola called the Telefuerico Madrid, which took us across the river to nowhere – the terminus was in a wilderness area at the edge of a park, a kilometer or two from an amusement park, but there was no transport. We bought a round trip ticket, so after wandering around a bit, we returned to the origin. When we got on near the rose garden, we told the operator we wanted an English version of the narration, but we didn’t get it. On the way back, however, we did. It was actually pretty stupid – I wish we hadn’t bothered, as it is easier to tune out the foreing language than English.

We ate lunch, then took the metro to Royal Palace, where the king does not live, but which is used for state occasions. We wandered the area a bit, and bought Roger a hat pin. As we were checking them out, we saw another tourist about our age, also wearing a hat, admiring the pins. His wife rolled her eyes at us, or perhaps just at me!

Rain had been threatening all afternoon, so we returned to hotel, arriving just as the first drops of rain began to fall. We spent the latter part of the afternoon in the hotel, dozing and surfing and writing and reading. I was not as tired as yesterday, probably because we did no museums today.

In the subway were several women and a few men
 dressed in some sort of native costume

The rain really served to cool things down – we made sure we had our sweaters on as we left the room for dinner, although during the day it had been quite hot. We ate dinner down the street, where we shared a pitcher of sangria and had to stagger home. In the restaurant, we met a couple in the restaurant from Toronto - he is a native of that city and speaks French, she is a native of Mexico. They are in Spain for 10 days’ vacation. Obviously they had no trouble with the language.