Madrid Open and La Granja

Over one of our May holidays we rented a car to enjoy some things outside of the city.  We went to El Escorial, La Granja, The Madrid Open, and even spent a day enjoying suburb life with a trip to a suburban mall.  (Sometimes you just need to get away from the city!)  Anyway, it was really fun, and we enjoyed it all.  We split one of our days between the Madrid Open, and La Granja.  It was such a great day.  It's not often you get to go to a Major sporting event in the morning and then spend the evening exploring a castle and gardens modeled after Versailles.  The gardens especially were amazing.  Being able to watch such talented Tennis players so close up was also amazing.  I hope we get to do both again next year.

 Our to-be tennis stars getting a feel for their future.

La Granja was stunning.  King Phillip V of Spain was actually the  grandson of Louis the XIV of France.  He was born in Versailles, and is said to have modeled the Palace, and especially the grounds after Versailles.  It was built in the 1700's.  The gardens are stunning.  The night we went they turned on all the fountains and it was a really amazing site.  You could spend hours and hours just wandering those gardens.  We actually got lost in a maze there.  We thought, oh this will be fun, and by the end we were taking every short cut we could and eventually hopped over a fence to escape the thing!  Despite the moment of misery it was still a lot of fun, and a great way to spend an evening!

Our snack before heading up to the palace.  We are really getting into this easy going Spanish culture.  This was the perfect pre-activity snack to keep us going after the Madrid Open.  The Manchego Cheese was especially delicious.  It was topped with some olive oil, peanuts, and raisins, and the combination was fantastic!

We also had a trip to El Escorial, which is where almost all of the Spanish Kings and Queens are buried.  It was a really interesting place, and a great way to spend some much needed vacation time.