Magnificent Madrid

Having prepared inadequately for our trip to London earlier this year, this time I did my homework. To this end, I more-or-less memorized the important bits of Rick Steves' Spain. With only two full days in Madrid, I knew exactly what we should see and do: visit three art galleries and one palace.  Hang out in the main square.  Explore the old town.  (I also knew that the agenda would not include any kind of shopping -- no visits to markets or the huge and tempting El Corte Ingles department store. Best to get that into my head from the start.)

In any case, who had time to shop?  Madrid is a magnificent city for galleries!  Even tourists who don't like art should take time for:

Prado.  After the Louvre, the Prado is the best art gallery in Europe, and (no surprise) the very best for Spanish artists:  Jean Miro, El Greco, Goya, and my personal favourite, Velasquez  He captures the personality of his subjects so well that you pay attention to the person, and not just to their over-the-top baroque wardrobe.

Thyssen, aka the Thyssen-Bornemisa. I had never heard of this gallery but it has a fine collection of impressionist art, and because it is not the Prado, it is not a tourist mecca. Rick Steves' observes that the Thyssen has "lesser art by great artists, and great art by lesser artists".  That means you will not have to wait your turn to see that gorgeous Van Gogh, the one you didn't even know existed.       

Reina Sofia.  In a word: Guernica. Even if you can't stand Picasso, you need to stand in front of this huge, controversial painting -- one of the most important art works of the 20th century.

And then, 20 minutes from our hotel in the other direction, there was El Palacio Real.  By the time we got to the Royal Palace, we were accustomed to pretty buildings.  Madrid is a showcase for classically baroque architecture, but the palace, completed in 1755 and still in use, outdoes them all.  It is uber-ornamented. Thank goodness we did have not go through all 3,000+ rooms.

A portion of the pulchritudinous palacio. 

As it was, we saw enough rooms, chambers and anterooms chockablock with painted rococo ceilings, gorgeous furniture, china and clocks (the royal family apparently has a thing for timepieces) to bring on a diabetic coma.  I rather liked the un-ornamented pharmacy with its shelves and shelves of tidy jars and  hand-labelled pots and bottles.  Had I been the queen, I would have sneaked down there just to clear a brain overstimulated by too many cupids and pink clouds.
 
Our own antidote to wedding-cake architecture was a walk through the old quarter just outside our hotel. 

Our tiny hotel, El Pasaje, was on a tiny street.  If a car had come by, Ian would have had to jump into the doorway.

Some of our neighbourhood establishments were very picturesque indeed, even if they were merely old and not baroque. The charming bookstore and nearby Villa Rosa flamenco club are among Madrid's oldest businesses, apparently.  A few tiles, intricate stone work, some flowers and fancy grillwork = rustic charm.

Ros, Ian and Bruce check out the bookstore.

The Villa Rosa, with its totally tiled facade, is a great place for flamenco.  Not that we went....

We did take a break from our museum and gallery-going to join all the locals in the huge Plaza Major for drinks and tapas on a Sunday afternoon.

See and be seen at the Plaza Major, and bring the family!

We ate, admired the architecture, watched people come and go, and checked out the buskers. There were some very strange street entertainers in the Plaza, but none weirder than a sulky, overweight Spiderman.  I'll never know what he was up to -- he sauntered off while we watched.  His Spidey-sense must have told him it was time to find another web.

That's Spidey in Plaza Major having a smoke break.

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Travel Tip:  Unless you really are doing a walk-through in a gallery or museum, get one of the hand-held audio-guides.  Find the number attached to a work of art, punch it in, and listen. Without the need to focus, we would have wandered from room to room for two days, learning nothing.