I’m putting these pics in their own dedicated post because there are a lot of them, and they’re rather repetitive if you’re not a particular type of nerd. Happily, I am precisely that type of nerd, so the royal armory was a highlight of the trip for me.
We visited the Royal Palace on Saturday afternoon. It was pretty over-the-top. Over 3000 rooms. Gilded everything. Frescoes on the ceilings. Enormous paintings. All the things.
There was also an armory, but I’ll post those pics separately.
The two close-ups of the ceiling corners (before the piano)are worth looking at more closely. The artist combined 2D and 3D techniques to make some of the painted figures in the fresco become sculpted plaster as they crossed onto the wall.
Addendum: in one of the parks outside the palace, there are a great number of statues of eminent historical men. On most of them, most of the time, sit one or more pigeons. This seemed right and fitting.
We met Griffin at the airport with the rest of the exchange students, both from SPA and Colegio Malvar.
Griffin is in great spirits and is far more confident in his Spanish. He had a great time on the trip, and seemed excited to keep exploring for another two weeks.
He chose a great Philippine restaurant for dinner.
