Madrid Spain— The Perfect Getaway.

Right: The Communications Palace Building; Old Madrid

The best things in life aren't planned and this trip was definitely one of them. We had no time to map out this vacation— well, vacation for me, business trip for Chandler (too bad so sad for him). I did well to buy a Madrid tour book a few days before we left and spend a small fortune to rush through my passport renewal. But I wasn't going to miss out on this grand opportunity! 

Oh, did I mention that my husband had been complaining about a tooth ache for about 3 months and finally went to the dentist the Monday before we left? Yeah, the dentist said he needed to get his wisdom tooth out and that he might want to go ahead and get all four taken out at once. Ummhmm. Yeah. That's right. My frugal husband chose to get all four (count 'em "4") wisdom teeth taken out, even though only one was causing the ache.  His logic was that he would save money because he would only have to pay for anestesia once to get them all yanked. Such a deal. However, Chandler chose to overlook the fact that  he was traveling to another country at the end of the week and that high altitudes might induce excess bleeding and that if problems occurred overseas, like excruciatingly painful dry socket, we would be spending our precious little time together in a dentist's office in a foreign country. Lovely. He got all four wisdom teeth pulled two days before we left. Popped two Codeines on out 8 hour flight to Madrid and slept like a baby. Maybe he did know what he was doing.

Bourbon Madrid

The park you see in the picture above runs down the center of Old, Madrid with roads running along each side. 

Real Jardin Botanico, Bourbon Madrid

 The Alcåzar Castle, Segovia
Segovia is about an hour North of Madrid. It's an amazing old town set high on a rocky cliff.

 The Maze from the top of the castle.

 A view of the town of Segovia from the castle.

 The Roman Aqueduct running through the old town.

From Segovia, drove south to Toledo, another picturesque little town.

 Our hotel...

 ...with a view of the Bill Fighting ring. We missed the first fight of the season by a week!

 Outdoor Market, Toledo

Looking out from the city.

 One of the many churches. Incredible detail.

Bernabéu Stadium, Madrid

Back in Madrid, there was a huge Football (soccer) championship match— Madrid vs. England. Madrid won, 4-zip.

After watching all the football hoopla, took the Metro to the Plaza de Oriente in the Opera district. 

 

 We had a lovely dinner at an outdoor bistro.

And then we walked back to our hotel. That's when we realized Chandler had left his iPhone4 on the table at the restaurant. But that's another story. Aside from that, we had a spectacular time!