You Spain Me Right Round baby, Right Round..: Who needs a Walking Tour when you've lived here for 5 months??

So I brought myself to taking a free walking tour around the city I've lived in for over 5 months and I could not be happier. After having my friend Kevin (the Amsterdam grad student *see Paris) come and give raving reviews of the tour he went on while I was at work I thought I'd give it a shot. After nonchalantly brushing off weird looks for being alone on a walking tour (ain't no thang tourists), I followed Claire, our English guide, around this fabulous city I (and the entire world) call Madrid.

I was aware of a minimal amount of information presented on the tour so I was looking forward to learning much, much more. We started off in Plaza Mayor where they held bull fights, forums, markets, and most interestingly, public executions. They built make-shift bleachers for thousands of spectators to watch these gruesome events. What I didn't know was that the "Spanish Method" of execution differed from most other types. What they preferred when ruthlessly murdering those who did not fit in *cough* those of Jewish and Muslim religions *cough* was tie them to a chair and knot a rope or cord around their neck that was pulled through a hole in the chair. From there, they would use a wheel on the back of the chair to constrict the cord around the victim's neck until s/he suffocated. This was a popular MO for executions during the Spanish Inquisition. A very interesting fact I learned about this was that only about 2,000 people were killed during the Inquisition. That may seem like a big number but the Inquisition lasted for 356 years, while the witch burnings in Britain lasted for a fraction of that time and over 30,000 people were killed.

No Pink Panthers, screaming baby peddlers, or shiny glittery wolf devils.

It's like a whole different world before 9pm.

Interesting story about this statue..

So I think this statue is of Felipe III, and it was built hundreds of years ago (go figure). However since about 10 years after it was constructed the townspeople of Madrid started to notice a horrible smell emanating from the statue. Anywhere within 20 ft of this bad boy, and you would start to smell all kinds of nasty. After a while, people just got used to it and eventually stories and legends sprang up about the origins of the odor. Evil spirits inhabited the statue, the ghosts from executions past haunted it, etc. etc. Finally in the early part of the TWENTIETH CENTURY (as in less than 100 years ago) they decided to restore this bad boy and as they started to disassemble the statue's interior they found HUNDREDS of dead pigeons! Apparently what had happened was the pigeons would climb into Felipe's mouth into the stomach of the horse and not be able to fly out again. So all these pigeons for hundreds of years rotted and decomposed inside the statue, thus creating a most displeasing odor for the city of Madrid. So, naturally, during the restoration of the statue the city decided to close the mouth of the revered king to prevent pesky birds from going inside.

From here we visited a famous bar/restaurant where Spain's own Robin Hood frequented and kept his booty. However, as my clever tour guide revealed, instead of stealing from the rich and giving to the poor he actually stole from the rich and gave to the whores. He was a ladies man you see and stayed that way until he was finally caught and sentenced to death in.... Plaza Mayor!

Then we walked past where Alfonso XIII was nearly assassinated in 1906 right on Calle Mayor. You can see the memorial to the event and the balcony where the assassin threw his explosive, killing several and wounding hundreds of civilians below.

They leave the palm branch there as a memorial to the event as well.

Next we made our way to the Cathedral where there is still part of the Moorish wall built over 1,000 years ago to protect the city against invaders while it was governed by the Muslim Moors. During the Reconquista (Reconquest of Madrid by the Christians) Christian forces gathered outside the city walls trying to decide their plan of attack on the city. The Moorish walls were very tall and highly guarded making it nearly impossible to cross. As legend goes, one intrepid 14 year old boy, who was eager to join the battle, volunteered himself to climb the wall first to assemble a harness for the soldiers. The boy was known as Gato (Cat) around the town for demonstrating agile acrobatic tricks around town for money. The king outright rejected his offer because the boy was too young too fight. However the soldiers eventually grew fond of the boy and he was sent to the king again to discuss plans to cross the walls. While some of the army created a diversion at the main gate of the city, Gato quickly climbed a less guarded section of the wall gripping the stones with his nimble fingers. Once on top he secured a rope for the rest of the soldier to climb up and the Christian army was able to rapidly climb up and overtake the city. For this reason, as the legend says, Madrilenos (people from Madrid) are commonly known as "Gatos" because of this young boy. However if you ask any Madrileno why they are called Gatos you might get a very different answer.

You can see parts of the old wall just below the Cathedral .

As you can also see in this picture there is a blue star on the ground which was a symbol for Islam, Christianity and Judaism. During the Moorish Rule all religions were recognized and able to be practiced freely, however once the Christian kings came in, other religions were quickly repressed.

After this we headed off to popular destinations such as the Palace, Opera, Puerta del Sol, Plaza de Santa Ana and where Miguel Cervantes (author of Don Quixote) used to live. These didn't come with as much history just fun things to look at. One interesting fact though is that during battle apparently Miguel Cervantes had his arm cut off and he came back to Madrid to write all his novels with only one arm. The last picture here will be a statue of him and there is discrepancy as to whether he is shown with two arms or one. I will let you be the judge.