Daily Life in Italy: King Tut

We slept in a bit this morning, then headed down to Starbuck's for breakfast - chais and chocolate donuts. Tasty.

After breakfast, Katrina headed to the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum. Brandon and I headed to Casa de Campo. This is a large city park that is home to an amusement area, walking and biking paths, and the World Expo complex. Madrid hosted the World Expo a few years back and this area was built up with exhibit halls, arenas, and restuarants. Yesterday, Brandon spotted a King Tut exhibit flier and wanted to see it. This same exhibit was in Barcelona last year when we were there, but we missed seeing it.

We had to walk past the Royal Palace on our way to Casa De Campo.

We also passed this gateway to the old city.

We walked and walked and walked. Several times we were sure we had missed the expo hall. We finally made it to the top of the park, built on a large hill overlooking the river and city. We found a sign pointing the way, but still weren't sure. When we finally asked for directions, the man we asked turned around and pointed to a sign on the next street. If we had walked another 100 ft we would have spotted the entrance on our own. It had taken us an hour to walk from our hotel to the Tut exhibit.

We finally arrived at the ticket office and found out that tickets were sold for specific entry times. The current tickets on sale were for 1:30pm. It was about noon. Brandon had a book in his backpack, so we found a bench and hung out. I found some drinks and a chicken salad sandwich at a small snack stand, so we shared that for lunch. We also texted Katrina that we would she was on her own for a few more hours.

The King Tut exhibit was fantastic. We have visited several museums with Egyptian displays and the Egyptian Museum in Torino. They were all great, but the Tut exhibit was unique.

Inscriptions in the gold outer layer of the sarcophagus

More gold detail

Brandon poses in front of the 2nd sarcophagus. There were 4 of these boxes, each one inside the other.

More inscriptions and decoration

The final sarcophagus, this one held the Tut's mummified body

Solid gold

These were the most interesting pieces. The shell is 100% gold - very shiny and beautiful.

Look at the detail work.

I really like this piece

Once again, look at the detail work. Those are gems set into the gold.

Tut's chariot - once again, more gold.

Throne. I expected something bigger and more elaborate.

Another throne

Brandon and I spent about about an hour and a half inside the exhibit. Katrina texted us just as we were leaving. We chose to meet her in town. Instead of walking the long distance, Brandon and I found the Metro. We found Katrina and she led us to an Indian restaurant she found.

We had a great lunch. Chicken curries for Katrina and Brandon. Lamb curry for me.

After lunch we rode the City Sightseeing bus. We usually enjoy these rides. They always give us a good overview of the city we are visiting.

Ministry of Agriculture

Prado Museum

Brandon has been on too many bus tours...now he reads.

Lights, as seen from the top of the bus

We hopped off the bus near Plaza Mayor. Katrina wanted to get pictures of the lights we spotted yesterday.

These are cool lights. Katrina took some really amazing shots of these lights.

Next we headed over to El Corte Inglese, a huge department store in Madrid. Brandon wanted to check it out. It was very crowded and we didn't really find anything that we HAD to have.