Don Quixote de la Mancha

While Madrid doesn't seem very "artsy" to me, it does have lots and lots of statues of important people, like writers, conquistadors, kings, etc. Here we have Jim posing with the playwright Garcia Lorca, author of one of our favorite plays, “Blood Wedding.”


And as you can imagine, Christopher Columbus is very big here. He not only gets a huge marble statue but also a whole traffic roundabout.

The base of the statue depicts the whole story of giving Columbus the commission to go to the new world all the way through the souvenirs he brought back for Ferdinand and Isabella. I think this scene below is him getting a bag of money from Ferdinand.


This wonderful bronze commemorates the great Spanish author Miguel Cervantes.


It includes a panel at the base showing his two most famous characters, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza.
Later we were eating our sandwiches in VIPS, a sort of bookstore/cafe, when Don Quixote himself came rushing in looking for the bathroom! I missed photographing him coming back down the stairs from the restroom but when we left the café we found him outside.


Only in Madrid!

Hasta el proximo!

Audrey