Rowkin Rovings Blog

So, our last day in Madrid today and our last day of holiday as tomorrow morning at an absolutely ludicrous hour we will fly from Madrid to Frankfurt and then on home to Calgary.

It has truly been a very good trip especially as the both of us came away with great trepidation, mostly due to being out of our comfort zone. There have been some very pleasant surprises, but we will put all that in our summation blog along with final stats in a few days time.

Spain certainly has some unusual history but the stuff we find of most interest is of the more recent stuff. Spain’s royal family did not leave Spain during Franco’s rule at all. In fact, they fled the country in 1931 because they were unpopular, which made Spain a defector republic five years before the Civil War started (in 1936), and eight years before Franco won (in 1939) to become undisputed dictator for life.  He really was a very nasty piece of works. We think Putin models himself on Franco as Franco’s political opposition leaders were also murdered along with many other people. Instead of Putin’s “more???” subtle poisonings, falling out windows, planes blowing up in the air or falling down a flight of stairs, Franco was a lot more blatant. He used a form of execution called garrotting and it was done in the public squares and he was not reticent in using it. It was a slow painful death and would take up to an hour to die. The last execution took place in 1974 and it was the political leader of an opposition party. Franco died in 1975 but unfortunately not through garrotting.

One thing we have struggled with here is the time zone. Spain is a big country, yet it is on one time zone, and it is the same time zone as Germany. Franco moved the clocks forward an hour as a sign of solidarity with Hitlers Germany. Unfortunately, they have never changed it back. Our friends in Sevilla who are from Canada said they have struggled with it as everyone ends up eating very late, goes to bed on full stomachs and wake up sleep deprived. If you have a look at a map as to where Spain sits, its westerly border is that of the west coast of the UK. Portugal is on the correct time zone. We think Spain needs two time zones

So, our tour took place today though an hour late but no problems as we got to have a very leisurely breakfast. We were taken to the very central point of Spain which just happened to be in the Plaza Sol where we started our tour.

You don’t cover great distances on these tours as around every corner is a story.

It was then onto the Plaza Mayor which is where the executions took place. Back in the day, executions use to be a form of entertainment. It was also the main marketplace.

Next it was onto the oldest restaurant in the world according to the Spanish and according to the Guinness Book of Records. It was playing on its notoriety as it was very expensive.

Then onto something very unusual. Our guide took us to the Convent of Carboneras Corpus Christi, located right in the middle of the old town and still home to cloistered nuns who are forever forbidden to leave the convent. They can’t even have contact with the outside world. According to the Catholic tradition, the purpose of a cloistered life is seclusion, prayer and being closer to God – guess what, there are only 12 of these nuns left and they are all elderly. We did look for any recruitment notices on the front door, but none were to be had. What they do do though is makes cookies which you can buy from them.

We were led along this labyrinth of dark corridors to this kind of enclosed lazy susan.

You bellowed out what kind of cookies you wanted from the list and then put your money on the lazy susan and then spin it around and then your cookies would appear.

Once you picked up your cookies, your change would then come around on the next spin. The cookies were really nice, and you could tell they were home made.

Our final stop was in front of the La Almudena Cathedral.

We were all set to go in for a look when it said it was a €1 entry fee but we had just given all our final euros to our guide, so we were officially euroless. Oh well, not to worry. It was impressive enough from the outside.

We were making our way back for our daily siesta at our hotel when we had one last thing, we, or we should say Fraser, had to do. That was to eat a calamari bun. Di was wise as she had already had enough tummy troubles already, so she declined this delicacy.

Well, he hoovered it up.

After a siesta we returned to the plaza’s of Madrid one last time. It is a Monday evening, and the streets are heaving with people. Where are they all from??? The evening air was a little cool, but this did not seem to deter them.

We had our last Tinto Verano – well for Spain anyway. From now on, anyone visiting our place will be offered tea, coffee and Tinto Verano. It consists of any cheap red wine and only a slightly carbonated tonic – it can be lemon or orange. We will need to investigate what we can substitute the slightly carbonated drink portion with.

We fought our way back through the crowds to jam all our dirty clothes into our bags for the morning.

This will be the last blog for a few days as it will take a little time to get all the stats together including the bar chart with averages for the steps. Could have done a bit better with the steps if Di hadn’t been laid low for four days in Lisbon but still think the average will not be too bad.

Think of us tomorrow as our day starts at 5.00am and does not finish until about 4.00am at which time we will need to find the energy to cope with one excited pooch.

Steps 13,007