The word is a very exciting place

My final day in Madrid was spent visiting the two most known and visited attractions, the Royal Palace and the Prado art gallery. I got to the Royal Palace early, and joined the queue that was growing ready for opening. I always pride myself on giving my honest opinions about the places I visit, whether they are good or bad opinions. When planning my trips and what I am going to do, I spend a lot of time reading reviews and researching places to see if I am going to like them or not, or if they are worth visiting. The Royal Palace was 18 euros for the main Palace building and Armoury. I didn't think that was too bad, it seemed reasonable for the largest Royal Palace in Europe. What I didn't expect, was for it to be so...well bland.

Having visited the Museo de Isidro, I then headed back to the Royal Basilica of Saint Francis the Great. And it was well worth the wait! It is beautifully decorated, brimming with detail and colour in every corner. It had a real Baroque & Rococo style to it, as well as containing some beautiful art in the side corridors.

 Who doesn't love a good archeological museum? I love them, I love to learn new things, see new things, and probably most importantly, I love to see things that I can relate to, it's make that connection between us and our ancestors that much closer. Sometimes I think we forget they were people too, and lived their lives in similar ways to how we do. We all work, share experiences with friends & family, have favourite foods, laugh & cry the same, and wonder about life. Whether that was 5,000 years ago, 2,000 years ago or the present day, the concept of life is the same. We all live it, and the only certainties about life are death, taxes and irritating people who walk slowly in front of you.

 I made the most of the early morning light by heading to the Royal Palace to get some photos of the outside before the place was rammed with tourists. Of course I needed some sustenance to do so, and grabbed some empanada's from the local supermarket! Why are empanada's not more widely celebrated as a breakfast food? They are tasty, filling and easy to grab and go? Maybe we should normalise them for breakfasts along with other hearty pastries like Cornish pasties and sausage rolls. Sometimes, a croissant will just not suffice!

Before you see the rest of the post, I just wanted to share my heartfelt thanks. I have just reached 30,000 views for this blog! It's an incredible achievement, and I want to say thankyou so much to everyone for following my journey & reading what I write. This blog means so much to me, and I am very grateful for the positive response I've gotten  After a taste of being abroad by visiting Amsterdam, I decided that in the week off I had in October, I was going to do a little more exploring. Back in 2018, all those years ago, I spent 5 weeks in Spain exploring, but ran out of time before I could finish. Although saying that feels silly, I think I could explore Spain for a year and still not see it all. But I decided to head out to Madrid, somewhere I had always wanted to go, and it seemed as good a time as any to return.

September was a stressful month, with a lot going on. To the point where the month felt a little overwhelming current events wise. It started off with news that we had a new Prime Minister, Liz Truss, who won the Conservative party election. She was replacing the toxic Boris Johnson, who had resigned before he could be removed from his post. It made it the third time now we were given a new Prime Minister without an election with this government. It happened with Teresa May, in 2015, then Boris Johnson in 2017. It didn't feel fair somehow, and it was very frustrating that nobody got a say in it unless you were a member of the Tory party, which lets face it, not many people are. I will however say one thing, with the choice between Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, it was a good example of representation, and a nice change from the almost constant stream of white men that had ruled Britain since the post was created. We had only had two female Prime Ministers before, Margaret Thatcher and ...

 Our final half day in Amsterdam was a better one, the sun was shining and our first stop was to visit a windmill. First of all, how you could visit the land of windmills and not go to visit one, especially in the Netherlands! But also, ever since going to the Angla Windmill Park on Saaremaa Island in Estonia, I've been a little bit obsessed with them. Funny how even a hundred years ago, the skylines of the countryside would have been covered in them wherever you went, yet now days they are few and far between. We headed to the Nieuw Sloten Windmill, in the village of Sloten. It was easy to get to, just jump on tram number 2 to the very end, and then there was a charming walk through Sloten, with it's quaint little cheerful houses.

 When you think of The Netherlands, you generally think of water, tulips, windmills and tasty cheese. Well I do anyway. And I know that's a sweeping stereotype, but sometimes stereotypes are based in truth. I was feeling better today, my cold symptoms seemed to have cleared up, and the weather was better too, it's not fun feeling unwell in the pouring rain! We made sure to do as much as we could, and we started in the tulip Museum.

 After a good night's sleep, and dosing myself up with cold & flu tablets, we decided to try and enjoy a bit more of our visit to Amsterdam. The first thing we wanted to do was visit Anne Frank's House. Virtually everyone I know has read Anne Frank's diary, it's a harrowing story of a young girl's life being destroyed by the Nazi's. She writes every day in her diary, about events that are happening inside the annex where she and seven others were hidden, including about her complicated relationships with them. I think what makes it so heartbreaking, is the fact that it just suddenly stops. The family was found, and they were deported away, with only her father Otto surviving. She wasn't able to finish her diary.