Spain, Day 7

Hotel breakfast was the best one on this trip.  Hiltons for the win.  We were rushed, so we didn't get to take full advantage of it, but it was still very good.

We met Rebecca and Rob at 9:45 for our first walking tour.  This was a new experience for us, a "free" walking tour (really, pay what you want, but don't be a jerk and stiff the guide).  Our guide was a very entertaining American expat who lives in Madrid with his husband.  We walked around for about three hours and saw the Royal Palace, the world's oldest continuously operating restaurant, Segovia's aqueduct, and the Puerta de Alcala.  We were quite pleased to take a break at the end of the walk to sit down for drinks and snacks.

The day's second tour was "Majestic Madrid", again with the same guide, which focused more on the various kings and the things they did.  We were interested, but also pretty tired by the end of it, and there definitely came a point where we just wanted to sit down for a beer.  Which we eventually did, for maybe an hour before we dragged ourselves off to the next tour.

The next tour was really the highlight of the day, two and a half hours on the Spanish Inquisition.  We learned quite a bit about the politics behind it, the mechanism of it, and why it was eventually stopped (again, politics).  Our guide for this tour was FANTASTIC and we were only disappointed we hadn't had the whole day with him.  

We got ice cream afterwards and chatted about Inquisition politics and contemporary American politics before we split up to return to our hotels.

Tomorrow, we visit the Prado.

MartyandLyle (and Rebecca and Rob)