The end of a long but lovely day!

Hola!

It’s still Saturday, but we do have to finish our activities.  We both had nice naps this afternoon, so decided to head to Buen Retiro Park for an evening stroll.  Took the Metro there, and found that our good idea must have been contagious – there were SOOOOO many people in the park – it’s truly a beautiful place, but SO UnFrench!  People were allowed to go anywhere in the park, so families and large groups were everywhere, picnicking, playing soccer, playing chess and mahjong and cards.  Definitely unlike the Luxembourg, our favorite garden in Paris, where people are NOT allowed on the grass at all, and all sorts of things are prohibited.  Much more lively and fun here.  There was a small artificial lake, with HUGE fish (R thinks carp) swimming around, with row boats for rent.  Would have enjoyed that, but there were so many people out there already, we figured they probably didn’t have any boats left!  We walked for about an hour, and finally came out on a street with buses!  Wow!  

 

Beautiful gateway to the city and Park!

And where did everybody go?

Lake looked like fun!

Like I said - people everywhere!

Got on a #19 for a stop or two, and then tried to get back to Gran Via – but of course - there was some sort of demonstration (called a manifestacion here) and streets were blocked off.  Managed to catch a bus that took us a bit closer to home, and decided we were close enough to walk.  

 

However, as we walked, we found an interesting looking restaurant, called Brescia, which (we knew from being in Brescia) was Italian.  It looked good from the outside, so in we went.  As we didn’t have reservations – and it was about 8 pm - we thought at first there would be no room for us – but it turns out they have an upstairs – so the sweet waitperson led us to a nice, quiet table at the top of the stairs.

Gotta love a restaurant with this slogan!

R's ravioli

My tagliatelle with meat sauce!  Yum!

It was GREAT!  I started with a glass of Prosecco, and R had a red wine from Sicily.  R ordered their cheese filled ravioli, his favorite, and I got to have comfort food – tagliatelle with meat sauce.  We should have taken an “after” photo, as there wasn’t a scrap of anything left when we were finished.  Loved our waitperson – she was from Venezuela, but learned her English from watching “Two-and-a-Half Men” on TV.  She also liked “Big Bang Theory” a lot; her Mom was the “Friends” fan.  At any rate, her English was excellent, and she was truly a lot of fun.

 

Just what we needed this evening, as it has been a long day.  It was in the high 70’s today, but is supposed to hit the low 80’s the next few days … we’ll be escaping to Avila and hopefully peace and quiet just in time!

Lots of love,

m

xxx