Our real goal was the Prado, half a kilometre up the road and we walked there of course. Here we followed a familiar procedure - convert the bulk ticket into a specific ticket for this museum, and walk around the building to the entrance. Before they even check the tickets you have to put your stuff (camera, backpack, etc) through the X-ray machines that are prominent at most public buildings. Then you have to put your bag into a storage locker, for which you have to insert a coin that you later get back. At the Prado you have to have to hand your bag in at the cloakroom. At other museums (Barcelona, Sevilla they would let you put the backpack on your front, but not here).
Although we had intended to be selective, we plunged right in and saw pretty much everything, lingering only at pieces that particularly appealed to us. Fortunately, we have similar tastes. We were just overwhelmed by the sheer number of fabulous paintings. Near the beginning we were blown away by Hieronymus Bosch's Garden of Earghtly Delights, a work that we had not expected to see in the flesh. We particularly enjoyed the Flemish masters, whose realism seemed more in tune with our tastes.
There were works here by just about every Rennaissance and later artist you can think of - Rubens, Rafael, Rembrandt, Tintoretto, El Greco, Fra Angelico, Durer, Breughl, Titian, Veslasquez, Goya, Van Dyck, Caravaggio, Murillo, etc. The iconic paintings here are Velasquez's Las Meninas and Goya's the Naked Maya. It really was thrilling to see these well-known works. Unfortunately of course, there was no photography allowed, something not clearly signposted. As I was taking my first picture, I saw a hand waving agitatedly in the viewfinder - an attendant indicating that this was not allowed. Bummer.
We had a serendipitous moment though when we came across a marvelous painting relegated to a corridor adjacent to a bank of lifts. It was a very large work, seven or eight metres long, entitled The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist and Herod's Banquet by an artist unknown to us - Bartholomaus Strobel 1630. The painting had many characters with exquisitely detailed faces and garments.We lingered for quite a while.
Another surprise was the huge number of great statues from the Roman era. Many apparently are copies of Hellenic originals.
We weren't overly impressed by the highly-regarded Spanish painters, as their style, subject matter and technique didn't grab us that much. This is not to say that there weren't some great works. All these opinions of course come from the great art connoisseurs that we are!
On exiting the Prado at 16:30, when we thought we had finished for the day, we realized that we may have mistakenly obtained a same-day-only ticket to the Reina Sofia when I bought the bulk tickets there in the morning. So we hurried back there to verify the situation, and in fact a ticket for that museum had been issued and could not be changed, so in order not to waste it, we had to embark on another marathon of viewing here at the Reina Sofia.
This museum specialises in modern art and the iconic work housed here that we were interested in was Picasso's Guernica. It took a lot of searching to find it, but after almost an hour we succeeded. Photography not allowed in this room There were also surprisingly many outstanding pieces by Picasso, Miro and Dali.
We were parched and dreadfully foot-sore after this double-whammy so we parked ourselves in an outdoor Cerveceria in the square outside the museum. We liked the look of the calamari bocadillos being served to other customer so we decided that this would be our evening meal - but again no vegetables - these are sorely lacking in our Spanish diet. Before this trip we were both on a low carb diet, but this has been completely reversed due to lack of choice. We decided to work off the carbs by walking home along Calle Atocha, but didn't realize it was mostly uphill.
We are both pleasantly surprised by the ambience of Madrid, which we think rivals that of Barcelona. We had expected something completely different, a more bland and modern fast-paced city. This may indeed be the case in other parts of the city, but not in the centre, which is pedestrian-friendly and full of charming plazas.
The finest we have seen so far is just around the corner from us - the Plaza Oriente, referred to yesterday. One entire side of the plaza is taken up by the Palacio Real, a huge palace topped by statuary, now apparently occupied by security forces. The other sides are bounded a semi-circle of attractive apartment blocks and the opera house. The attractiveness is enhanced by the use of paint. The middle of the plaza is a lovely formal garden frequented by strolling Madrillenos. Initially while we were there it was overcast, but then for a brief period the sun burst through throwing brilliant afternoon (7:30 pm here!) light onto the semi-circle. At the same time, menacing dark clouds filled the sky from the east, producing a sublime contrast.
We bought a couple of bottles of Crianza red from a butcher shop. Actually, like most of these places it specialises in Iberian cured ham, of which there is a huge amount. We now have a clue as to where the Argentinians' obsession with Lomo (meat) comes from.
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