Madrid had quite the feel of other European cities. Like London, it had the European architecture line-up of buildings along streets, and its share of museums and parks. Like Munich, it had its magnificent palace to boast the riches of Spanish monarchy, its huge Plaza Mayor and a super convenient metro/subway/long-distance rail. Like Rome (of course, nowhere close in this respect), it had its cathedral housed in a splendid building. In all, it is a wonderful city worth spending a good 3-4 days in.all
The Biblioteca Nacional and the Cybele palace were our first stops in Madrid. I was particularly attracted to Biblioteca Nacional because it was one of the largest public libraries in the world. While both the buildings were magnificent from the outside, the insides did not have much. In particular, entrance to Biblioteca Nacional was not allowed, so we could not get any feel for the size of the contents of the library.
We then made our way to Retiro park. This is a huge park, much like the Central park in New York city, where locals gather. The main street of the park is crowded by people, small entertainers and street vendors that try to grab attention of visitors. The palacio de cristal was a big glass house with not much in its interior. It failed to impress us.
To make our way to the Prado museum, we walked through some quiet quieter parts of Retiro park where some just a few locals took walks.
The Prado museum has an extensive European art collection, that is a delight to any art connoisseur. While I could appreciate several of the pieces, the nuances of different art techniques and how they developed in various European countries over the centuries were beyond my grasp. In all, we came out quite impressed by the museum.