June 13 Royal Palace

Today we walked around Madrid. it was very hot today. We started our walk going to the Royal Palace (Palacios Real). This is the Europe's third greatest palace after Versailles and Vienna's Schonbrunn. After the fortress burned down on this site in the 18th century, Philip V the first Bourbon (French) king of Spain, commissioned this huge palace as a replacement. He ruled Spain for 45 years but remained very French. He built this palace as his own Versailles, with more than 2000 rooms. These days the royal family lives in a mansion a few miles away, this place functions as a royal palace and is used for formal state receptions. Since we have been to Versailles and are palaced-out we didn't go in the Palace.