Sunday in Madrid, blue sky, cool temperatures. We decided to take a break from hardcore tourism and spend the day in the Retiro park with many other Madrilenos. Retiro is a large park in central Madrid with a large lake, rose garden, fountains, trees and coffee shops. As expected, as the morning progressed the park became more crowded with young families and larger extended families. People brought their soccer balls, roller blades and bicycles and dogs. People were enjoying the sun and relaxed atmosphere in the park. In a large city like Madrid, many people live in apartments and tend to get out and use the beautiful public spaces on the weekend. We spend 3.5 hours strolling thru the park and then watching a parade, just north of the park. The parade consisted of people in costumes wearing strange wooden shoes, herding large flocks of sheep.........thru a city of 3.5 million. After asking several questions we determined that this was an annual parade which pays tribute to people and traditional ways of a region in northern Spain. It was odd to see all these sheep being herded, a few tried to escape into the adjacent traffic and much hilarity ensued. From the parade we made our way to a lunch reservation we made at the St James (Santiago). The St James is a traditional Spanish restaurant which specializes in rice dishes (paella). Our reservation was at 2pm and by 3pm the restaurant was jammed with families meeting for a Sunday lunch. We started with a selection of grilled mushrooms, followed by a green salad. We followed our starters with a paella of seafood which used pasta instead of rice. We had a lovely bottle of Verdejo with lunch and a glass of Cave as an aperitif. We finished our lunch at 4pm and strolled back to towards the hotel........a very local way to spend a Sunday. We did do some power window shopping in Salamanca on the way to lunch and have noted some shops we will need to visit tomorrow. We will spend a quiet evening catching up on our correspondence and reading. Adios from Madrid.