History lessons

Today we went to lunch at Nacho's parents’ house. We were joined by Nacho's abuela, Brigida, who recently turned 95. At that age you can’t really expect much, but the señorita is lucid and spry as can be. Somehow we got on the topic of the Spanish Civil war and Brigida began to tell stories about her memories from those years. She remembers spending two days in one of the metro stations during a bombing of Madrid and even when the explosions were farther away her house shook from the impact. People fought over food and ate what they could find. With my recent interest in Spanish history it was a fascinating lunch.

When we left their house and headed home we changed buses near the Puerto Toledo. As we strolled down Ronda de Toledo we passed a small park that holds the Chiminea del Gasómetro - the only remaining part of the old gas factory built in the mid 1800's and closed in the late years of the 20th century. This picture doesn't do justice to the impressive height of the tower. With the factory producing coal gas the output of the chimney would have been an ugly smoke. Menos mal that the chimney was tall enough to give the residents below some breathing room. Take note of the graffiti at the base of the chimney. It's a shame. (I went searching on the internet for some additional information about the chimney and the factory. I found it here: http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showpost.php?p=7179028&postcount=60. The page is in Spanish but the pictures are interesting and give a better idea of the size of the chimney.)