Madrid: the Prado, National Library

Since I can't get enough of Art Museums I was in heaven at the Prado, which is a huuuggee art museum and has tons of great art. I spent most of a day there and loved it. I think it was at least equal too, if not better then, the Louvre-and it was WAY less crowded. Also I got in free because I am under 25. So that was awesome, too. It is also free daily, every night, for 2 hours from 6-8, which I thought was really cool thing to do (and the Louvre definitely does not do). The line was super long though but I thought it was worth it.

And right next to the Prado is this church-

After spending the day there, I walked over to the National Library which was AMAZING. In my opinion, every library should look just like this-

And the views from the observation deck on the top were pretty great, too-

I love all libraries and I don't want to play favorites but this one might be the prettiest library I have ever seen! Also, I know when you look at the above picture of me the first thing you think is "OMG those earrings are amaaazzinng where did you get them?" Yes, I agree and they were my Christmas (Hanukkah??) present from Lauren. :)

Madrid: Royal Gardens, Crystal Palace

Madrid has a lot of outdoor gardens and space, which I loved. The weather was beautiful and it was so amazing to be outside wandering around I could not get enough of it. So I headed over to the Royal Gardens to wander around. There was also a giant lake you could rent row boats for super cheap and paddle around on... which I would have loved to do if I had someone to paddle with :)

But I didn't so I just headed over the the monuments to enjoy the architecture and try to forget about the fact that I was all by myself-

Then over to the Crystal Palace. The gardens were actually built to be "working gardens" and to teach botany so the Crystal Palace was a hot house for more fair-weather plants-

It was super gorgeous and so was the lake/water fountain thing in front of it-

The park also has a lot of fountains (this was was turned off for the winter I think)-

And then on the way out of the park I walked by a little shopping area that was selling books! Oh, if only I spoke/read Spanish-

On my way out I passed by this-

ANOTHER Triumph Arch. I think this is like the 6th one I have seen! (Barcelona was my favorite.) I swear every city HAS to have one in Europe. :)

Madrid: Palace de Royal, Basilica de San Fransisco

Walking around Madrid, I found this cute little market below this huge monument (who or what for I really have no idea). 

I then walked over to the Royal Palace of Madrid, where I ate an ice cream cone and walked around the gardens -

This is actually the official residence of the Spanish Royal Family but apparently they spend most of their time at some other palace outside the city... I don't know why as this is the largest palace in Europe (by square feet) it has 2,800 rooms and is 1.45 million square feet. Seriously who is like "It's totally necessary to have a house with 2,800 rooms, let's build it." I mean 2,800 rooms. That's INSANE. I think to compare Versailles has less then 1,000. It was actually closed for state business when I was there so I couldn't go inside. But it was still nice to walk around it-

But I walked to the church that is attached to the palace-

I'm kind of obsessed with statues on top of buildings :)

The palace is also home to the "Covenant of the Royal Barefoot Nuns" which was founded in the 1500's by a Spanish Princess and still has working nuns at it (22 or 23 I think). At one time it was apparently the convent for royals to enter if they had to/wanted to become nuns, so it was ridiculously wealthy since they came with huge dowries, however apparently there were some restrictions on how the dowries could be spent so by the 1900's they were living in not-so-great conditions. The Pope then gave them special permission to sell some things to raise their living conditions. I was able to peak in (no pictures allowed) but the tours were only in Spanish so I opted to pass on a whole tour.

There is also a great view from the courtyard of the palace-

Next I headed to the Basilica de San Francisco, which was the name sake of one of my favorite cities-

Then walked around the city and admired the cute street signs-

And while I was walking around I saw this-

Which was in a main square, made no sense to me AT ALL and was there the whole time I was in Madrid (4 days). I asked people but never got an answer about what the deal with it was... how random!