I had a window seat, and snapped this photo of Palma, Balearic Islands, as we flew over. Palma is the main city on the biggest of these islands, which is called Mallorca in Spanish, better known in English as Majorca.
Ultimately the baggage did appear on a carousel, but it seemed to take about as long as the flight from Rome. It seemed that the powers that be decided the luggage needed to be X-Rayed after removal from the plane. I always thought that examination took place before the luggage was loaded on the plane, but who knows these days.
After these delays, we were herded to our bus and taken on a tour of parts of Madrid.
The Real Palacio (or Royal Palace) is an opulent 18th century affair reflecting the French tastes then in vogue. On Christmas Eve 1734, the Habsburg Alcazar burned to the ground, enabling Felipe V to build a palace more suited to the requirements of a Bourbon monarch. Designed by Italian masters Sacchetti and Sabatini, is was so lavish that Napoleon claimed his brother Joseph had better lodgings than his own at the Tuileries in Paris. The royal family vacated this palace in 1934, and it is now used only for offical events.
The red arrow on the map shows the entrance we used.
The Plaza de Oriente, adjacent to the palace, is a formal garden laid out around a bronze statue of Felipe IV engineered by Galileo (and not visible in this photo!). The Teatro Real, the tall, light building, was reopened in 1997 after lenghty renovations, and is one of the largest opera houses in Europe, holding 1800 patrons. At that time, the surrounding streets were turned into pedestrian areas for day or evening strolls.
The easterns side of the palace, shown by the red arrow on the map above. The exit from the ticket booth puts us into the central courtyard.
From the courtyard, looking at the main wing of the palace, the section open to tourists.
Looking from the entrance shown in the above photo, towards the Catedral de Nuestra Senora de la Almudena [I'm guessing the translation is "Cathedral of Our Lady of Almudena"]. It is not a part of the palace, despite how it appears in this photograph.
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