Saturday is rapidly becoming my favorite day of the week. It is a day that I get my security blanket...I mean Husband all to myself. It is a day where things are open and we can go shopping or explore the city together.
We decided to have a book shopping day, looking for used books in both English and in Spanish.
We are very lucky to have a bus that stops right by our house and goes into the heart of the city. One of the stops is by the Puerta de Alcalá. Which I did not notice but it is completely different on either side! It does not even look like the same gate. Here is the view we saw yesterday (complete with a tourist posing whom I did not know).
Below is the other side of the gate I had taken almost two months ago.
Right next to this is the THE park of the city El Parque del buen Retiro. It is massive, it is beautiful, and there are different themes and sections. There is a crystal palace, and a boating pond where you can be in actual boats (not toys for the kids). But today was not about the park - it is wasjust a pleasant walk (maybe a bit longer than we expected) to get to the books.
(Below left) I am totally going to do a photographic collection of the "dramatic angel of Madrid" there are so many. (Below right) below the dramatic angel where some gargoyles that totally look like creatures out of the movie "Labyrinth" (think fire gang)
On to the books of Cuesta de Moyano most of the books are used and it is located just outside the Retiro to one side of the botanic gardens. It has almost been there for 100 years (it was started in 1919). It is a good place to look for used books, ranging from first editions to very used paperbacks. Most of the books you find here are in Spanish (which is what we were looking for), but there are books in: English, German, and French as well.
OK I did not get many pictures of the books, because frankly I did not think of it. I got this one though and it should give the flavor of what the book market is like. There are permanent booths to the left and tables with books to the right.
We than headed off to the neighborhood of J and J books. J and J's is a used English bookstore in the heart of Madrid (sadly no pictures).
But first..we stopped into a bar to get some lunch and some...
I love that sign it is all tiles and the slogan is "the pleasure of kings".
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