So up a bit later today (just before 9) get ready and head out to the nifty places we found yesterday. Had breakfast in a little bakery\/cafe – Joe said it was a good one because when we went in there was a policeman getting his coffee and pastry (doughnut?) We enjoyed our breakfast. Then straight down to the Prado to get our art ticket sorted.<\/p>\n
The woman at the ticket desk wasn’t particularly friendly and seemed really cross that we wanted to sort the ticket out – she kept telling us it was for tomorrow. But the receipt itself said we could exchange it before the date – that way we could go into the Prado without queueing tomorrow morning. Also when we were there the ticket office was very quiet, no queues and not many people. Now we need to make sure we can use it for the other museums on different days; it says we can but then the way she was acting maybe we can’t!<\/p>\n
Once that was sorted we headed up Paseo del Prado to the Biblioteco National. At the top we stopped for a drink, then headed back down, this time through the Parque de el Retiro. Strolled through the park while Joe took photos – stopped at the lake to watch the fish and boats, went to the Crystal Palace to see the exhibit and then watch turtles in that lake, then along and out by the train station.<\/p>\n
At the train station got our tickets for Santander and talked about our day trip out. Probably won’t go to Cuenca due to the time\/expense, but looking at Toledo and Segovia. We shall see.<\/p>\n
Finally back to across the road from where we had breakfast to have a very large, late, Cuban lunch. Now stuffed we are relaxing for an hour or so before heading out again to the Plaza Mayor so Joe can get photos. Actual walking time was around 5 hours.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
So up a bit later today (just before 9) get ready and head out to the nifty places we found yesterday. Had breakfast in a little bakery\/cafe – Joe said it was a good one because when we went in there was a policeman getting his coffee and pastry (doughnut?) We enjoyed our breakfast. Then […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4T97-m1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1425,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2014\/06\/17\/kathleens-reason-for-being-in-madrid\/","url_meta":{"origin":1365,"position":0},"title":"Kathleen’s reason for being in Madrid","date":"Tuesday, 17 June 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"We did art crap. Lots of art. And this was just the first day of art. Editor : \u00a0By that Joe means we went to the Prado! And saw lots of very nice stuff. Got up early due to noise in the hotel (it's a nice hotel, very clean and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Travel"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4294,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2025\/12\/15\/city-break\/","url_meta":{"origin":1365,"position":1},"title":"City Break","date":"Monday, 15 December 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Up early to head into Pompeii. Had breakfast at the hotel; the view from that cafe is amazing over the ruins and Vesuvius, especially in the morning with the sun rising onto the mountain. The hotel is right at the Amphitheatre entrance so we were early to the gate, but\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Travel"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":527,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2013\/07\/01\/fossils\/","url_meta":{"origin":1365,"position":2},"title":"Fossils","date":"Monday, 1 July 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Not the ones at Glastonbury, but the ones along the south coast! We're off to the Jurassic coast! But first to Portsmouth, after a night of watching the Rolling Stones at Glastonbury (that was pretty wonderful!) (oh, not live, just the BBC coverage. Unfortunately as it looked pretty amazing!) We\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Travel"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4098,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2019\/03\/25\/another-country\/","url_meta":{"origin":1365,"position":3},"title":"Another Country","date":"Monday, 25 March 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Or we went to the Vatican today (ooo look, the Sistine Chapel!). Up stupidly early - 5am - as I got breakfast tickets for the Vatican. Slightly less than the early morning \"open the museum\" tickets, but still very early! (So the open the museum is you show up at\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Travel"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4136,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2019\/12\/09\/quiet-day\/","url_meta":{"origin":1365,"position":4},"title":"Quiet Day","date":"Monday, 9 December 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Joe is back to work, poor Joe. So back to up and out for breakfast. Found a new place toward the office which is really nice and may well become our breakfast place this week. Crisp hot toast, yay! After breakfast, waved Joe off to the office and headed out.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Frog Blog"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":149,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2008\/04\/11\/why-to-go-to-florence\/","url_meta":{"origin":1365,"position":5},"title":"Why to go to Florence","date":"Friday, 11 April 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"To see the art of course. And to see art concentrated go to the Uffizi which is what we did today. Up early(ish) after a good night's sleep and had breakfast then off to the museum. I bought the tickets on the web so had a voucher. Top tip: you\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Frog Blog"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1365"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1365"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1365\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1385,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1365\/revisions\/1385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}