On the Paseo del Prado, that wide avenue that runs in front of many of Madrid's most important museums and institutions, there's a tree-lined pedestrian walkway. As you stroll along it, you come to the Fuente de Apolo—the Apollo Fountain.

As far as I'm concerned, a city just can't have too many fountains, and this one makes a pleasant stop for pedestrians making their way from one museum to the next.

Fountains, of course, have water emanating from various nozzles. This becomes problematical when jets emerge from human figures. In the case of the famous Manneken Pis in Brussels, orifice location becomes a joke in bronze. So often, though, it's just awkward.

I mean, exactly what is the artist trying to say here?

I was thinking about the advantages of steel frame construction over masonry. Call me a madcap fool, but there it is.

Masonry walls don't have much shear strength. After all, they're just a bunch of rocks piled one on top of another. It's relatively easy to push them over. For strength, they must be made thick. You can't have many windows, or at least not large ones, and maintain resistance to shear forces such as high winds or battering rams.

These buildings, one 19th-century, one 16th, illustrate the point. Lots of wall, not much glass.

Sometime in the mid-19th Century, cast iron began to replace masonry, allowing designers to open buildings up to admit more light and permit something new for retailers: display windows. Nowhere is this more evident than in Manhattan's SoHo.

I found some cast iron architecture in Madrid; for example, the Mercado de San Miguel.

Not long ago, this place was a bustling hive of small vendors' booths. Currently it is not being used, but I can't imagine that it will remain idle for long.

Most of our buildings in San Miguel de Allende are masonry, and display windows are small. Shops are dark inside, and you have screw up the energy to go inside them if you want a look at the merchandise. In contrast, most of what's inside Madrid's Mercado de San Miguel is visible from the street.

A small cast iron building houses a café on the Paseo del Prado. Diners sitting inside maintain connections with passers-by. No walls to create barriers.

It's an inviting place. The openness of the lacy ironwork makes you feel like you're already half inside the café as you pass by. Why not come all the way and join us?

The ultimate achievements using spidery iron frameworks and glass were the great glass pavilions, of which the Crystal Palace in London was the largest. It was destroyed by fire in 1936, but Madrid's much smaller Palacio de Cristal still stands in Parque del Buen Retiro, just east of the Prado.

Being Spanish, tiles are incorporated into the framework. The shell of the pavilion is almost completely transparent—even the roof.

Like so many Spanish monumental buildings, it's beautifully maintained. The Palacio de Cristal is used today for special gatherings and performances. That it is a working building improves the odds that it will remain a Madrid landmark, and a great place to retire beside on a sunny Sunday.

When Jean and I visit major cities, we use the subway if there is one. It's cheaper than other modes of transport and usually gets us where we want to go quickest. We've ridden the Metros in Paris, Tokyo, and Kyoto; the Underground in London; BART in the San Francisco Bay Area, and the subway in New York. I just love subways.

City buses don't work for us. Takes too long to make sense of a city bus system. Moreover, buses often are stuck in traffic jams.

While we didn't use Madrid's buses, we did appreciate the Mitsubishi ads featuring a Boston Terrier. We miss ours, having left her in Mexico. (Muffled sob. Sniff.)

Taxis cost too much. In Madrid they are rarely less than €10 and can quickly run up to €20-30; money better spent on museum admissions or tapas.

Some people like to take the double-decker buses that circle through tourist-interest areas...

...but they cost a whopping €15.30 per day. Besides, they don't run frequently and you look dorky sitting in one.

No, I prefer the Metro at €0.65 per trip. Plus your average platform wait is around two or three minutes. You can't even get a taxi that fast.

Modern subway trains look nice. Graffiti-proof paint and discontinued use of slashable vinyl upholstery keep cars from being trashed.

The only signs of vandalism are diamond-scratched windows and moronic stickers applied to interior surfaces. (They'll always find a way...)

We spent a little quiet time with a map to learn the system. It just doesn't work to jump on a train and go. While at first glance, metro system maps look formidable, they always yield to patient study.

For example, the red line on the map took us directly where we wanted to go most of the time. Our apartment was toward the upper right; the city center toward the bottom left.

On the Metro, we had the opportunity to meet unique and interesting people.

It's always tough to break the habit of licking your new lip stud. (To my friend Bill R: Lots of single girls in Madrid, Bill.)

Then there's all the free entertainment.

Nothing like a man playing I Did It My Way on his cornet to speed your journey. The machine by his feet added a reggae rhythm. He had us all popping our fingers. Just look at those happy faces.

You buy tickets to ride the subway. Here, Madrid could use a little kaizen—the Japanese improvement process. Below we see a ticket booth in a typical state: Staffed, but out of service.

He's behind bulletproof glass. He better be.

Well, no matter. We can just walk over to the ticket vending machine.

Oops. It's out of service, too.

We could go back to the man in the ticket booth and try to explain the situation. But experienced Metro riders we are, we know he'll just tap his "out of service" sign and motion toward the vending machine.

I have to admit this situation occurred only once in more than two weeks of riding the Metro. But often one or the other ticket vending solution was fuera de servicio and we had to look for another.

(What do those guys do sitting behind their windows? They show all the hustle of a French street cleaner. Or a USPS counter clerk.)

A single ticket costs €1; one good for ten rides is €6.50. Don't lose your ticket. (Our tour leader in Tokyo taught me to keep my Metro ticket in my "happy place" so I wouldn't.)

Fast, efficient, clean and cheap. What's not to like? "But," you ask, "are they safe?"

Well, No.

Between the Paris and Madrid Metros, I've experienced four pick-pocketing attempts, two of them successful. I'd have saved money if I'd rented limos instead.

So why do I do it? Well, there's something empowering in mastering the Metro. Makes me feel like I'm getting a handle on a new city. I get a sense of belonging. With a great show of impatience, I sweep past befuddled tourists squinting at their maps, saying loudly to Jean, " Let's take the green line toward Casa de Campo and transfer at Callao."

And while I did get robbed twice, I beat two other attempts, and the ensuing sense of triumphant satisfaction made the whole thing worth it. It's like people gambling in casinos: They know that in the long run they're going to lose their money. But they do it anyway, for the thrill when they do manage to beat the house.

This is one of those delightful little discoveries. Check out this building: a nice postwar brick apartment block with iron balconies and wooden shutters.

The tree, the street lamp, and everything to the right of the corner of the building is real. All the rest is trompe l'oeil. A blank wall has been skillfully transformed into windows, awnings, more buildings, and blue sky.

Now let's pull back.

Aw crap! Ignorant little mouth-breathers destroyed this charming work with meaningless scrawling. Others came along and put even more graffiti on top of the old. And someone posted bills on top of the spray paint. Makes me think murderous thoughts.

Madrid is a grittier city than Barcelona. Most Barcelonan spray-can delinquents confine their defacements to freeway retaining walls and roll-up steel security shutters. Not so in Madrid, where almost no wall is sacred. Even buildings along the Paseo del Prado have been tagged.

However, the deterrent of having graffiti artists create special images on security shutters still seems to work even in Madrid.

Wonderful, huh? Salvador Dali with a spray can. I think he would have loved it.

My friend Bob Latta characterizes visiting monuments as "checking boxes."

Luxor—check.
Angkor Wat—check.
Coliseum—check.

Personally, I like to search for the unexplored or, in this world where everybody travels, the under-explored. But sometimes, I just have to get out to the E-Rides. They're on everyone's list for a reason: They're spectacular. Here's an account of our box checking at the Royal Palace, official residence of King Juan Carlos.

I'm not sure what "official residence" means. The King and his family don't actually live here, so it's more an "official non-residence." Maybe it's like 220 North Zapata Highway, Laredo, TX where so many expat San Miguelenses "live."

"Am I a U. S. resident? Sure am, Podner. Ah rent a mailbox condo in the Lone Star State."

Same deal, except the King's place is nicer than ours.

Juan Carlos uses this pile of marble to greet foreign dignitaries and for various other ceremonies. Oh, yeah. And to make a buck off tourists. Costs €8 to get in the place; €9 if you want the guided tour. (Which, believe me, is well worth avoiding unless you like being herded in a docile group while some functionary spouts mind-numbing statistics.) I bet the place is a moneymaker: Thousands were there when we visited.

Unfortunately, your eight euros doesn't buy you the right to take photographs inside, an annoying policy that seems to have spread all throughout Spain. Being an actual paid guest of the palace, I felt entitled to lift three images from the Palacios Reales website (in Spanish). May I be forgiven if I have overreached my welcome.

The Throne Room

The Porcelain Room. (Where Jean remarked: "Nice clay.")

The Royal Armory.

The palace contains 2,000 other rooms. We, the Great Unwashed, were permitted to see a couple dozen of them. No touching. The rooms we saw were decorated with works by Velázquez, Caravaggio and Goya, among many others. Exquisite frescoes, tapestries and carpets were everywhere. There were individual pieces of furniture worth more than my house.

The Music Room contains five Stradivarius instruments. I wonder if they're ever played, like those in the Violin Museum in Cremona. Keeping instruments like these locked up behind glass is a crime. They were created to be played; they need to be played to stay healthy; and the world deserves to hear them played. Jean and I walked into the Music Room and I said, "Gee. They sure look nice. I wonder what they sound like?" Weird.

Outside, where I was grudgingly allowed to take pictures, we admired the ornate lamps.

Note the lack of graffiti. It can be done, folks.

To the south, the palace faces the Catedral de la Almudena. It's there so the King can get to church when his own private chapel needs cleaning.

This couple took pictures of each other standing in front of it. You can always count on tourists to put a monument in perspective.

(Once I watched as busloads of Japanese tourists visiting the Grand Canyon snapped endless photos of themselves in front of the sweeping view from Maricopa Point. Meanwhile, Chinese gamblers, taking a break from Vegas, were doing the same in front of the restrooms.)

The palace has a museum store that we checked out in case they had any Goya prints for sale. They didn't.

But they did have some extra-long floppy pencils and little spiral-bound notebooks. So you could sketch the interior of the Dining Hall. I mean, if it's allowed.

The Palacio Real de Madrid is just one of seven royal palaces. King Philip II kicked off the second home fad when he ordered this one built in 1734. It's a sort of town 'n' country home, surrounded by lots of open space.

The westward view from the palace is of a garden called Campo del Moro.

Nice view, considering it's in the middle of Madrid. Nobody's gonna build a Wal-Mart near the King's place.

We drove down to the La Mancha town of Almagro without having booked ahead for a hotel room because none were available online. When we arrived, we made finding one our first priority. We checked the cute little inn on the plaza: no room. Nervous because hotel rooms had been so scarce, we drove back to a dingy hotel near the town entrance. There we were given a dank room: not nice, but it would beat sleeping in the car.

Then we took an auto tour of Almagro. As we drove we saw a number of directional arrows bearing the word parador. I had heard about paradores—elegant state-run inns for tourists—but I assumed they all had to be booked months ahead. Following the arrows, we soon arrived at the parador at Almagro. We checked with the registration desk for information for use in a future trip, and as an afterthought, jokingly asked if a room was available now. Surprise: the answer was yes! We snapped the room up, and Jean went back to the dingy hotel to cancel our reservation there.

People have raved about this system of tourist hotels, and given our experience at the converted Franciscan Convent of Santa Catalina, we emphatically concur. This beautifully restored 400-year-old building was by far the finest, most interesting place we stayed in in Spain.

No expense had been spared in making the building like new while insofar as possible retaining its authenticity. Real antique furniture filled the public rooms. You were permitted, even expected, to sit on furniture like the 17th-century bench pictured above.

Below, Jean relaxes in an old leather and wood armchair, keeping an eye on the newly hatched pigeons in the laurel tree just outside the window.

As of now, there are 92 paradores. Mosty are large old properties that have historical significance. While not budget accommodations, they offer truly elegant surroundings at mid-level prices. All of the furniture and fixtures are high quality as is maintenance of the facility. Beds are comfortable. WiFi is available in every room and—unusual for Spain—actually works. You get free razors, toothbrushes and toothpaste without having to ask for them. There are huge, fluffy white towels to wrap up in after your shower. Rooms all have mini-bars with reasonable prices: I bought a coke for the same price as from a vending machine. They have a dining room offering three good meals a day. There's a bar with drinks and tapas for when the dining room isn't open. The staff, government employees (whom I expected to be as customer-conscious as post office clerks), all turned out to be the most courteous, helpful, accommodating hospitality service folks we met anywhere in Spain.

Bedrooms had low, wide doorways. I'm 5' 9" tall, and ours was barely high enough to clear my head.

The doors, I imagine, were made recently, but still use the 17th-century wire hinge design. The bedrooms originally were nuns' cells, and while comfortable, manage to give off a feeling of being cloistered.

In the bar I saw large pottery containers. I asked the bartender what they had been used for, and he told me "Wine storage."

I had trouble believing that. First of all, I suspected that the bulk of each jar was underneath the floor, hidden like an iceberg, which would make for a heck of a lot of wine. And secondly, the simple wooden tops laid on top of the jars would not have kept oxygen out. Any wine stored there would have gone sour in a matter of days or weeks.

Later, driving through the countryside, I saw houses with unburied jars standing alongside. Many were plumbed. Other jars were lying around in groups, as if for sale.

They turned out to be water storage jars and every house has one for keeping a reserve for when the supply is intermittent. The jars are called tinajos, very close to tinacos, the word we use for the plastic water storage tanks atop our houses in Mexico.

When we return to Spain, we'll spend more time traveling through the countryside. And we'll plan our trip well in advance so that we stay, for the most part, in paradores. They are the crown jewels of Spanish hostelry. To check out paradores for yourself, look here.

Almagro is situated in the southwest of the plains known as La Mancha. It's the kind of place San Miguel de Allende was thirty years ago, except with more money. As in most Spanish and Latin American towns, life centers on the town square.

Almagro's is large, and while lacking shade trees, provides an expanse where children can play impromptu futbol games.

The plaza is aligned east-west, with shady arcades on the north and south sides. In an unusual architectural twist, the arcades are formed by wooden balconies supporting two stories fronted by continuous rows of windows.

The two floors are residential; undoubtedly pleasant on peaceful days (like when we visited), awful during weekends and festival weeks. Stacks of chairs hint at the incipient arrival of weekenders, only an hour's drive away in Madrid.

Note the long, brown beam supported by all those white columns. My inner engineer compels me to comment on details of their construction.

In the 16th Century when these were built, tall, straight oak trees could still be found in nearby forests. Half a millennium later, these old timbers have endured as only oak can, a phenomenon that causes me to wonder every time I see it, whether in an old English stone cottage or a half-timbered house in an ancient German city.

The trees from which these beams were cut were left to dry for years after felling. You can see this today because they have not warped and twisted like the ones in wetter climates such as England. While very long by today's standards, still several had to be pieced together to make the 400'-long arcade.

The beams were joined together using a variant of an old structure called a butterfly. In the photo on the left, you can see a wooden butterfly, on the right you can see one made of iron.

(Sorry. I get off on this kind of stuff.)

An open ironwork belfry supports the town clock bell on city hall.

I don't see these often. Too bad; I think their airy, delicate look is charming. The airy, delicate communications antenna behind the belfry does nothing to enhance the structure's beauty. Why the hell do they do stuff like that? San Miguel has antennas sprouting all over its colonial buildings. They would be every bit as effective sprouting over the ugly Gigante building at the edge of town.

And while I'm bitching, look at the telephone line strung across the town square in the first photo. Almagro has gone to a great deal of effort and expense to preserve the town. Why allow someone to screw it up?

Almagro looks as much like a colonial-era town as possible when you have cars and electrical lines and election posters.

A note to San Miguel's Architecture Police: This is the way a colonial city is supposed to look. White. That palette of earth tones we're restricted to using: they didn't have paint in those colors in the 17th Century. They had white. That's all. Our brick reds and ochers and yellows and browns are lovely. OK by me if everyone cooperates and uses them. But don't be talking about authenticity to justify your regulations. Authentic is white.

Jean and I sat under umbrellas at a café in the square and drank cokes. (Two bucks a pop for eight ounces—the standard price in Spain.) Next to us sat two local women talking. Once in a while, one of their children would check in, then run off to do more kid stuff. Neighbors would stop by, and ask if they had seen this person or that, or would just sit and gossip for a bit before going on with their day.

It seems like a nice, safe town. Small children have the run of the plaza without parental supervision. People walk their well-behaved dogs without leashes. Reminds me of growing up in a small town in New Jersey.

And unlike their reputation in Mexico, policemen seemed to be genuinely concerned about the welfare of citizens.

In this benign atmosphere, no threatening or dissolute characters live. And wonder of all wonders, there's no graffiti.