The Crystal Palace, Retiro Park in Madrid (Spain). It was built in 1887 for the Philippine Islands Exposition, held that same year. Nowadays, contemporary art exhibitions are held inside.
So, yesterday I went to the Retiro Park by myself to see my favourite madrileño thing ever, the Book Fair. I also decided to show you guys some of the parts of this park, the Central Park or Hyde Park of Madrid, and also went to certain high school near Retiro Park where a certain Movistar + show may or may not be filmed...
So let’s start, join me in the marvelous adventure that was yesterday!
So, after missing the bus and nearly missing the light rail, and about 1 h 15 min of transportation, I finally got off the Retiro metro station at around 11 a.m. (although from the wrong side, as there is an exit right inside the park). This exit was located in Alcalá Street (remember the San Isidro post? There was a song about this street), one of the most important of Madrid, and at least I could see the Puerta de Alcalá (Alcalá Door, there’s a song about it, I may do a post about it someday), the Spanish version of the french Arc de Triomphe or the german Brandenburg Tor.
The main entrance to the Retiro Park (for reference, this is at the Northern edge of the Retiro) is here, so I could enter easily the park. Here is a photo of it, and also of another door closer to the metro station that I couldn’t reach without getting smashed by the traffic, with a beautiful church behind it.
After that, I started wandering aimlessly through the park, not really knowing where the Book Fair was and getting distracted by every nook of the Retiro. For starters, here are some random buildings I came across with:
The first building is pretty self-explanatory, but according to google maps, the second one is the “Cultural Center Casa de Vacas” (”Casa de Vacas” literally translates to “House of Cows” so that’s nice I guess), while the third one is the “Velázquez Palace”.
But what I really love about the Retiro, is that you can forget you are in the center of Madrid with all it’s greenery and calm:
I then went to my favourite place in all of the Retiro, and probably of Madrid, the amazing monument in honour of Charles III, who remodeled the park and honestly for me was the best king of Spain.
I even made a video so you guys could admire the monument as a whole!
(I didn’t know how to upload it here, so I had to upload it to youtube, I’m sorry if there was an easier way, but I’m really not great with technology)
After that, I went to the main street in the Retiro Park, the one by the lake that you probably recognise from that Skam España clip.
And, of course, I had to recreate Cris’ photo.
I know, I know, we are identical. To avoid confusions, I’m in the left and Cris is in the right.
At this point I honestly had no clue on how to find the Book Fair, so I just started walking through the park, hoping I would see the stands somewhere. And I came across a place I had heard about but never actually saw, until yesterday, the “Crystal Palace”:
And I also came across a place I didn’t even knew it existed, but it amazed me. It was a fenced off rose garden, and it was like entering a fairytale land, really.
When I exited the Rose Garden, I finally saw where the Book Fair was, but, in the other end of the trail, there was a thing I was actually looking for, because I wanted to show you, the “Fallen Angel Fountain”, the only monument in the world dedicated to the Devil:
Sorry for the quality of the photos, I suggest you to google it because it’s honestly amazing.
So, after all of the wondering, at 12:00 a.m. I finally got into the Book Fair. It consists of a whole street, the “Paseo Fernán Gómez” (”Fernán Gómez Promenade”) lined up with stands of different libraries and publishers (over 200) from all over Spain and Latin America, full of books. Not gonna lie, this is my happy place.
Fun fact, the attendee who was at the close-up stand knew what career I was studying after I said I studied things related to what they sell (which is really surprising, as my degree is unique of my university, there are no degrees like mine in the rest of Spain) and that I could even do an internship with them, so yay!!!
So, I went through all the fair, bought some books (I’ll show them later) and by 1 pm I was done, and I was very hungry (note that I had only had breakfast at 8 a.m., and that I always have for breakfast two greek yogurts and nothing more), so, even if it was a bit early, I decided to eat. I found a nice place, and I ate one of the most Spanish things ever, a tortilla de patatas baguette:
After eating, I just had left one thing to do: visit Skam España’s high school. I knew its name, and kinda its location, so, with the help of Google Maps, I could get there in 10 minutes.
The thing is, it’s located in a weird fenced-off zone with like parking lots reserved for official cars and really suspicious and ominous buildings that made me think I was entering some kind of government secret area or something like that, and I became really scared, so when I eventually got to the High School, which was also full of teenagers that had just finished their classes (it was about 2 pm), I just snatched a couple of photos before nearly running out of there, scared as hell. This is a photo of where I got out of there and into normal streets:
Don’t you dare tell me those buildings aren’t suspicious!!!!
Either way, here are the photos I took, with a comparison of the building shown in Skam, so you can see it’s the same one, but in another angle:
So, after escaping that weird place, I realized the closest metro stop was Atocha (I know now it’s not longer call that, but you get the point) and there wasn’t a way of going home from Atocha’s line, so I had to do a really weird detour, and long story short, I was home by 4 pm.
Here are the books I bought btw
The first one is for my father, as his birthday is right around the corner, and would translate as “Cornelia of Gades: An extraordinary hispanic in the Imperial Roman court” (he really likes historical novels, and I chose the one I would read, so he could lend me when he’s over). The other two are for me, “A Year In Ancient Rome. The everyday life of the romans through their calendar” from Néstor F. Marqués, and “Poetry” of the ancient poet Catulus, I highly recommend it to you.
Thanks for sticking til the end, and I hope you liked my yesterday adventure! :)
