Columbus Square, Madrid

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(c) MAO Madrid

Nice big bus with a top floor for people who need a rest, but want to see the city.

The bus is just turning into Columbus square, Plaza de Colón, photographed below.
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Below, in the middle of the photo, in front of a line of trees, you can see  some large grey blocks of concrete.

They represent Columbus’ famous three ships crossing the ocean:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Plaza_de_Col%C3%B3n_%28Madrid%29_06.jpg by Enrique Dans from Madrid (Spain) published under CC Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

These are the three ships  sailing past the Kennedy space center photographed by NASA: the Santa María, the Nina, and the Pinta.

http://mix.msfc.nasa.gov/IMAGES/HIGH/9265044.jpg see copyright notification
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On the blocks, those inscriptions, are the names of the men who traveled in those ships, and there are messages from all the Latin American countries.

The picture is from the GPS Madrid photo collection at http://webdax.homepage.t-online.de/GPSGuideMadrid/.

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The Columbus Towers became famous both because of their engineering and because of the original owner’s controversial business style.

The towers hang from that platform, each floor suspended from steel cables. Construction began with the concrete footings and two central pillars supporting the upper platform. Then the towers were built from top to bottom.

The thing at the top that looks like a plug was added later, I don’t know what for.

(c) MAO

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(c) MAO

There is Christopher Columbus, high up, and therefore just barely visible.

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