Palacio Real

Today while we were riding our bikes in Madrid, Spain and we saw a huge, huge palace called the Palacio Real (the royal palace.) The current palace was built for King Carlos III. He wanted to live in the grandest most beautiful castle. He also wanted to put 50 large limestones statues on the top of the castle to honor many of the past great kings of Spain. This plan, however, never really went into action because of the king's mother. She was afraid that since the statues were on the roof and they weighed so, so much that one day she would walk out of the castle, the statues would fall off the roof, land on her and kill her. The castle has over 2,000 rooms( but only about 25 are open to visitors).




The palace has a statue of Carlos III in the front courtyard. It is made out of bronze. This statue was very challenging to build because Charles III wanted the horse, that he is riding in the statue, to be on its hind legs. This had never been done before, ever! So the artist of the structure, Velazquez, called the famous astronomer,Galileo, to help him. Galileo told Velazquez to make the front of the horse hollow and the back of the horse to be solid so the statue wouldn't snap in half or not be able to stand on its 2 back legs. When Velazquez finished the statue he brought it to The King and do you know what he said? He didn't think that the face of the statue looked like him. So he had the statue beheaded and put in the basement of the castle for many, many years until finally someone came and finished it.
This palace is very beautiful outside. It has statues of pots and people on the outside. There are gardens in front and around it with flowers and neatly trimmed bushes.

The current royal family of Spain, King Juan Carlos (and his family do not live here. They chose a smaller castle outside of Madrid. They thought this place was just too big!

When you go to Spain, I definitely recommend visiting this palace or at least walking through the gardens.

-Marin-

Location:Madrid, Spain