Casa De Campo

After our long lunch, we were ready for a little adventure. The goal was to locate a tram ride that offers great views of Madrid - the Téleferico. Without too much direction, we took the Metro to the Casa de Campo, a HUGE park area outside of the city center. This contains an immense park, which was used originally as the King's hunting grounds, but has since been converted into a park and preserved.  It's probably the size of San Francisco's Presidio - maybe bigger, and is interlaced with lots of dirt paths for biking and hiking.  It also contains the Zoo, and an amusement park.

We arrived at 4:30 or so, and the zoo was closing in an hour, so we opted not to go in, and instead walked through the park.  The kids found a cool play structure, and we all enjoyed the hike.  We could see some of the amusement park rides in the distance.

Playground at Casa de Campo

Hopefully we'll be better planned next time, and be able to visit the Zoo and aquarium.  The Zoo apparently has one of the few pairs of pandas in captivity.

And we never did find the téleferico, but I looked it up later, and we now know where it is for later this week.