Today we went to the Teatro Real, Madrid's opera house, which is very impressive.
Once we were done there - it was a couple of hours, with an audio guide app that was actually pretty decent compared to the others we'd had recently - we wandered around past the palace and to the Temple of Debod, which - despite being an actual ancient Egyptian temple brought over from Egypt and rebuilt brick by brick - wasn't actually all that impressive. You could go inside, but the lineup was huge and we decided we couldn't be bothered waiting.
We did some more wandering and found Plaza De España, which was full of food stalls from Spanish-speaking countries as part of the national day celebrations.
We had lunch at a Museum of Jamon which, despite the name, was not a museum at all, just a restaurant/cafe. But we had some very good jamon and bread and cheese.
After that we did some souvenir shopping and then went to the CaixaForum for the Espionage exhibit, which was quite good.
For dinner we found a place that had some interesting Spanish stuff and later on went to La Mallorquina, a famous patisserie, for buñuelos - filled pastries a bit like doughnut holes. But not to my knowledge anything at all to do with Luis Buñuel.
First thing I saw on the opera house tour was this - odd access of course relates to the door number, not whether or not you yourself are odd.
A very detailed model of the building. They described in the audio that there's street access to a huge elevator so they can just drive trucks - literal trucks, not the stage kind - full of gear and empty them onto the stage to set up.
The model had wee set designs in it.
There are some great views of the palace from the balcony.
They've kept costumes from over the years to put on display.
The ceiling is a map of the night sky with the stars the way they were the night it first opened. Unbelievably cool.
The curtain ties were very detailed.
More views from the balcony. Not sure why they're out of order.
And that was the opera house. Here's a good YouTube video of the theatre:
Wandering the streets again.
The Temple of Debod.
We spotted a woman walking her dogs, one of which was a shiba inu. We may have stalked them for a while.
In the souvenir store. The closest I came to finding one with my actual name on it. I felt like Bart did at Itchy & Scratchy Land.
At CaixaForum.
They had a lot of interesting Bond movie posters from other countries.
Some production sketches.
And actual costumes from the movies.
Prop weapons.
Safin's mask from No Time to Die.
A sculpture based on Chelsea Manning's DNA and the possible faces that generated.
Drinks. Beer for me, sangria for Rochelle.
Dinner, including migas - meat and crumbled up bread; it was very tasty.
And then potato, egg and chorizo in a wee frying pan.
We'd go back to this bar tomorrow night.
The buñuelos from the patisseries. They come with different flavoured fillings; I think we got a mix of chocolate, fresh creme, lemon and dulce de leche. They were fantastic, and actually worth the amount of time we had to spend lined up outside the store...
