Madrid 3

Although it’s a bit cold outside it’s not raining so today we decide to go to the Botanical Garden behind the Prado, which we decided to pass on yesterday. It was founded by Charles III and contains over 650 species of plants. The entire thing is split up into four levels each one presenting plants in a very organized and scientific way. It was not built just to be a nice garden but in fact to serve as a museum of plants. On one end there is a green house. Each room is dedicated to a different variety of plants like cacti, palms, etc. On the top tier there was a special exhibition of Bonsai trees. It was pretty impressive to see the different shapes they could be trimmed into and how small they actually are. There were even a few pots containing a group of trees that looked like mini forests. From there we walked to the Park del Oeste which over looks part of the city. In the park is the Templo de Debod an Egyptian temple that had to be relocated due to the Nile rising after the building of the Aswan Dam. It was given to Spain as a thank you for helping with the process.It sits in the middle of the park surrounded by water helping to simulate its original Egyptian setting. Our last stop of the day was the Ermita de San Antonio de la Florida. It is a small chapel where the artist Goya is buried. Within it’s cupola Goya had actually painted a beautiful vaulted fresco. It was a bit of a shlep to get there but definitely worth it. Then we went back to the room to rest up and get ready for Rosh Hashanah services. We went to the Bet Yaakov synagogue, and as we are in Spain decided to check out the Sephardi Services. The women seating was in the balcony and the female members of the community were quite chatty. After services we went for dinner at the apartment if the Madrid Chabad Rabbi and his family. We dined with an international group mainly consisting of Americans and Israelis. The Rabbi said at the beginning of the meal that in his apartment it is as if we are in Brooklyn, NY. While it wasn’t exactly like Brooklyn it was nice to have a meal with native English Speakers after over a week of communicating mainly with sign language. One more day in Madrid and then it’s on to Lisbon.