Old Madrid branches more or less surrounds the Plaza Mayor until it, and the city, come to an abrupt end at the royal palace. We walked around the area for a couple of hours, which is a fun place to explore, although for Europe it's not particularly old and has lots of new development mixed in, which ruins the effect. One sight that occupied a huge part of our day is pictured here, the Monasterio de Descalzas Reales, or Convent of the Barefoot Royals. It was founded by the sister of the Spanish emperor Carlos V, the most powerful man in Europe at the time. His sister was married to the crown prince of Portugal, who died almost immediately after the wedding. She then became a nun but in very luxurious fashion, by founding a convent for royals. Each of the new royal nuns brought with them a huge fortune, which was used to kit out the place in splendor. The public spaces, such as the staircase pictured here, are very over the top, while the individual sleeping quarters of the nuns are equally interesting, each decorated in a highly individual style, often by very famous artists. The tour ends in the famous Treasury, where the convent threw all the various holy relics and treasures that invariably came with the nuns. Unfortunately they didn't care enough to track any of these gifts, so nobody knows which bones, teeth, jewels etc came from which saint. It's all just sort of a big mess, which is surprising given the extremely strict way the convent runs its tours. You have to go on a ninety minute organized tour, and be lectured at by a very strict Spanish lady, in Spanish. I tried translating some of the tour in whispers to Somchai, but she gave me such dirty looks that I gave up. Somchai further aggravated the woman when he sat down on the stairs at one point rather than pretend to understand what she was saying, and she acted like he had just urinated on a holy relic. It's an interesting place to visit, but probably not worth the hassle, and definitely not if you don't speak Spanish.