A Visit to Santiago Bernabeu
Day One Madrid:
OK lets get one thing out of the way. I love Madrid. I love it's people, it's museum's, everything. So I'm kind of jaded.
Ok so to the blog post.....Traveling with Mr. B resulted in our visit to FC Barcelona's Camp Nou. Hence, with our arrival in Madrid it only seemed logical to visit the home of Madrid's amazing Real Madrid soccer club.
So after a little R&R at the hotel's very nice Executive Lounge we saddled up the great Madrid Metro and made our way to the home of the Real (Royal) Madrid Soccer Club located in its amazing Estadio (Stadium) Santiago Bernabeu.
Ok so to the blog post.....Traveling with Mr. B resulted in our visit to FC Barcelona's Camp Nou. Hence, with our arrival in Madrid it only seemed logical to visit the home of Madrid's amazing Real Madrid soccer club.
So after a little R&R at the hotel's very nice Executive Lounge we saddled up the great Madrid Metro and made our way to the home of the Real (Royal) Madrid Soccer Club located in its amazing Estadio (Stadium) Santiago Bernabeu.
Much like the visit to Barcelona's Camp Nou, the visit to Real Madrid was especially enlightening for me (Mr. No Sports gene). This is the only soccer team in the world to recieve FIFA's Century Award (Best Soccer Club of the Century). This team is a very real part of the heart and soul of Madrid.
FIFA Century Award
The tour walks you through the entire stadium top to bottom including team dressing rooms and presents the club history in splendid multi-media museum spaces complete with 100 plus years of trophies and memorabilia.
Team Roadboy at Santiago Bernabeu
(This Stadium Seats 80,000 Fans all Afforded Perfect Sight Lines)
Madrid is suffering from horrific economic conditions presently, yet its soccer teams offer a source of pride.
Day Two:
The highlight of our second day was a follow-up visit to Madrid's Exquisite Palacio Real. This is my second visit and it was still awe inspiring.
From last years post readers may remember the mystery of the corpse on display in the glass coffin in the Royal chapel. You can't miss it since they've even moved the thrones to make it clearly visible. On my last visit we asked them in the library and they simply smiled. So when I could I kept trying to find out something and Nada. I had a friend tell me it was the corpse of a saint and was a gift from a pope. I was also informed by one reader that one of the kings slept with it. Now, I'm gonna assume they meant in the same room, hopefully not the same bed!
So this trip I bought the audio tour figuring they could not possibly gloss over a corpse under glass. Well the audio tour discusses everything down to the drapes, yet it made zero mention of the mystery corpse. So who is the dude under glass sarcophagus in the Royal Chapel?
Well this trip I just camped in museum store reading every english language book about the palace. And in one a very small aside is made to the wax covered skeletal remains in the Chapel. It was indeed the pontifical gift of the bones of (one of the) St. Felix's (there are more than one).
From there we walked to the lovely Mercado de San Miguel for some beer and tapas. And a bit of drool time at all the lovely food available.
From there we breezed through the Plaza Major and the Puerta De Sol. The huge (and uber cool) Tio Pepe sign is still under wraps a year later......Bummer!
We returned to the hotel early enough for a swim and finally knocked down Mr. B's bottle of birthday prosecco (from Vienna) to commemorate the trip.
On to packing for tomorrow's long journey home.
Roadboy's Travels © 2013
Little Madridista's
Day Two:
The highlight of our second day was a follow-up visit to Madrid's Exquisite Palacio Real. This is my second visit and it was still awe inspiring.
The Palacio Real
Viewed from the Plaza Oriente
(The Bronze Horse With King Philip IV was Engineered by Galileo)
From last years post readers may remember the mystery of the corpse on display in the glass coffin in the Royal chapel. You can't miss it since they've even moved the thrones to make it clearly visible. On my last visit we asked them in the library and they simply smiled. So when I could I kept trying to find out something and Nada. I had a friend tell me it was the corpse of a saint and was a gift from a pope. I was also informed by one reader that one of the kings slept with it. Now, I'm gonna assume they meant in the same room, hopefully not the same bed!
So this trip I bought the audio tour figuring they could not possibly gloss over a corpse under glass. Well the audio tour discusses everything down to the drapes, yet it made zero mention of the mystery corpse. So who is the dude under glass sarcophagus in the Royal Chapel?
Well this trip I just camped in museum store reading every english language book about the palace. And in one a very small aside is made to the wax covered skeletal remains in the Chapel. It was indeed the pontifical gift of the bones of (one of the) St. Felix's (there are more than one).
From there we walked to the lovely Mercado de San Miguel for some beer and tapas. And a bit of drool time at all the lovely food available.
The Mercado de San Miguel
From there we breezed through the Plaza Major and the Puerta De Sol. The huge (and uber cool) Tio Pepe sign is still under wraps a year later......Bummer!
We returned to the hotel early enough for a swim and finally knocked down Mr. B's bottle of birthday prosecco (from Vienna) to commemorate the trip.
On to packing for tomorrow's long journey home.
Roadboy's Travels © 2013
