Dusk on the Fourth of July with this American me photo walking from the Royal Palace of Madrid along Calle Mayor toward Plaza Mayor. My photo walk consisted of side-stepping off the main road onto any other street with an interesting surface texture, eye-catching piece of a building, street name tiles and other things that caught my attention as architecturally and artistically interesting to photograph.
Calle Mayor is a busy street and I ventured down smaller roads for quiet solitude on a sweltering summer evening for this coastal Californian.
Woman in flip flops, roller blades tightly secured to the exterior of her backpack walking two dogs, no leashes. She talked on her phone while in motion. She walked through an exit off the square as I photographed the street signs.
I walked the same way, which led to another square with the statue of Don Ãlvaro de Bazán (1526-1588), a Spanish admiral of the Royal Navy with a distinguished career marked by being undefeated in battle. The Spanish Armada invasion of England happened a few months after his death in Lisbon.
When I do a city walk I typically snap photos and at some later time use Google Maps to figure out what I photographed. This approach allows me to integrate cultural and historical knowledge of a place like Madrid. In this case, my sightseeing learning is happening months later, reading Wikipedia and other sources while sitting in a hotel room in Krakow, Poland waiting for the cold December rain to end in a few hours. Quite a contrast to in weather to Madrid on what had been a dry and hot July 4, 2022.
More street sign tiles
Madrid business murals
Plaza Mayor, Madrid
Plaza Mayor, originally built from 1580 to 1619, was the center and main market square of Old Madrid. Several fires over the centuries resulted in reconstruction with the last major structural changes dating from 1790 to 1854. In the center of the large square is a statue of Philip II on horseback.
Casa de la PanaderÃa was maintained as the focal point of Plaza Mayor after the third great fire of 1790 burned down much of the plaza. The exquisite colorful frescoes between the rows and columns of window shutters were designed by Carlos Franco in 1992. Originally used as Madrid’s main bakery, Casa de la PanaderÃa currently houses the Madrid Tourist Board..
