madrid-segovia: a day of unrealized opportunities
Saturday 3 december 2005 5:10am s’pore time
10:10pm spain time
Today was abit of a wasted day. Whole day raining. So not only bad for pictures, and it also dampens everybody’s spirits. Go everywhere for sightseeing also inconvenient. Haiz. Morning bus took a trip to nearby sergovia to see the old roman aqueduct and eat the suckling pig for lunch, the town’s speciality. Overall the lunch was gd. Special mention goes to the soup. But I honestly have to say that there’s nothing that much special abt the suckling pig. Tastes like normal roasted chicken. We easterners cannot appreciate Spanish food. Even the tapas ( something similar to our dim sum) wasn’t very fantastic. Tapas itself has a lot of potential for a gd meal, but the small dishes they served us yesterday for dinner were quite boring. Normal salads, fried fish, sotong. And so on. But that’s not the focus for today.
And the tour around Madrid focused basically on a tour of the royal palace. And they whiz u past the other major sites. no time, no mood to take pictures. One reason, being that traffic jams in Madrid is very very very very serious. Everywhere jam. And coupled wif the gloomy weather…everybody just don’t have mood for sightseeing. The royal palace is quite something. Very grand and sumptuously decorated. First time u see the grand, lavish rooms, u r awed, but after a while, it all gets a little sickening. All that gold, rococo décor, paintings make it seem very unnatural to live in. too lavish and extravagant. Too much fluff. And after a while, living like this everyday can leave u yearning for a simpler life. it all seems so artificial. Won’t want to live in the palace. But the rooms have an overwhelming effect that leave u awed and humbled. This palace was built to impress, and they more than succeeded in doing that. But u shd go and see see. Its an experience still.
Many of us were left wishing and wishing that sergovia was removed from the itenary (we wasted some 4 over hrs there, including the very wasteful traveling time which amounted to a total of 3 hrs). that time cd have been better spent on a leisure tour of Madrid. Even though we did not see the entire city, only getting some glimpses of the city here and there, and viewing the city at one of the most undesirable weathers imaginable, I have to say that Madrid is an extremely beautiful city. The architecture here is simply…, as in Barcelona. And there r plenty of things to see and do here. A lot of old squares, monuments, museums, churches, palaces, shops await if u do it free and easy. And I’m still yearning to go to the prado.
Tmw we’re checking out at 12. so we plan to wake up early and go prado museum b4 we leave. It opens at 9, and we’ll go to the museum at around that time, after breakfast and doing some wrapping up of our luggage packing. There’s a mrt that can bring us straight from the hotel to prado straight. We plan to leave at around 11, so we’ll have abt 2 nrs there. Which is enuff time to see at least the more impt paintings.
Can wait to go to the prado. A last visit b4 we all return to reality.
alvin ong dozed and watched the sawdust trampled night @ 10:09 PM
<< Home