Last full day in Spain

The Cerralbo Museum is in the former house of Enrique, the Marquis of Cerralbo, and is today presented largely as it was when he lived there.  He lived relatively recently, from 1845 to 1922.  The house was basically designed as a gallery to show off his extensive collection of art, archaeological objects, and things from exotic lands like Japan.  It is still packed with them now.

Venetian glass chandelier

The dining room, Cerralbo Museum

Our wanderings also took us to the cathedral, which is large but quite uninspiring on the outside, but inside has quite a clean design and very attractive windows and decoration.

Madrid Cathedral

Cathedral ceiling detail

We passed through a popular indoor market, packed with shoppers and tourists and with lots of well-presented stuff for sale.

Christmas eggs

Cup cakes

Breakfast strawberries!

Tonight we went out to find something to eat, which is not quite as easy as it sounds because Spaniards in general have dinner at 8 or 9 at night.  After some wandering we selected a "cerveceria" which actually translates as "brewery" but is really a restaurant of sorts, and where we found good food.  It was full of noisy diners, but most seemed to have a drink and a plate of ham and cheese, then leave!  This is just their pre-dinner snacking, I believe.  When you consider this behaviour along with the fact that many shops close from say 2:30 to 5:30 pm for "lunch" you can start to imagine why the Spanish economy is not doing so well!

The streets around Puerta sel Sol (Gate of the Sun, a large popular square near us) were packed with thousands of people and lit with Christmas decorations.

Xmas tree in Puerta del Sol