Category Archives: Madrid

The Prado

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Thursday October 15

This Mad Hatter was outside the Prado with his little white mouse.  They both looked very content and pleased with themselves!imageThe Prado has 102 rooms and we managed to visit all but 17 of them.  We spent about six hours exploring and soaking up the incredible art work but we simply ran out of time and energy.  There are no photos in the Museum but I did take these two.  I know, I am a bad girl! We saw many paintings that were familiar because of reading my art books.  It was wonderful seeing these works in person.  This is a very famous Goya work titled “The Family of Charles IV.”  I just wanted one photo to say “Yes, I was there.”  When I am home I will find a good book on the Prado as a reminder of everything we have seen today. Books are just too heavy to lug around in our suitcases!imageThe Museum encourages artists to study and paint in the Museum, as this young lady was doing.  We saw several artists at work today.  image  Pictures were allowed in the Leoni Cloister and when we looked up we could see that there were workrooms above the cloister.  I would love to be able to tour these rooms, but had to settle for zooming in for a closer look.imageimageWe headed back to our Airbnb for some much needed rest.  I love touring Museums and Art Galleries but it is quite exhausting, physically and mentally.imageThis has been home for the last ten nights but we leave the day after tomorrow.  We only planned on staying here for four nights but liked it so much, and Bob really liked taking the bus into Madrid instead of driving, so we changed our reservation to twelve nights.  image

Palacio Real and Templo De Debod

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Wednesday, October 14

The Palacio Real is the official residence of Spanish Royalty and the building we tried to visit Monday that was closed for a State Function.imageBob read somewhere that there are over 2000 rooms in the Palace but we are quite content to visit the twenty or so that were open to the public.  This is half of the grand staircase at the entrance, there is also a set of stairs on either side of this one that continues to the second level. The red crest at the top of the stairs is the personal crest of King Felipe IV, who we almost saw on Monday!imageThis is the view up above the staircase.  It was very ornate but only a taste of what we saw inside the Palace rooms.imagei did take one picture of the Royal Chamber of Carlos (Charles) III also known as the Gasparini Room.  We spent about an hour and a half touring these lavish rooms, each more ornate and incredible than the last.  We even visit the Throne room and the Crown Room where the Royal Crown and Sceptre are kept along with other State treasures.  There are the ordinary sort of Museum ‘guards’ but there doesn’t appear to be a lot of security inside the Palace.  Mind you, there are lots of police everywhere outside the palace.imageDo I look royal walking down the Palace stairs?  Just picture me in a beautiful ball gown, all decked out in jewels!imageWe visit the Armoury through these old doors. imageTurns out it is one of the most important collections of parade and tournament armour in the world!  Everything is beautifully displayed on two floors and there is even armour for children and ponies.  No photos allowed, but here is a photo of a photo from a little calendar we bought.

imageAfter a tea break in the Palace Cafeteria I do go back and sketch this interesting old helmet from the 1400’s. It was one of the first exhibits we saw when we entered the armoury, and of course I love dragons.  It was also small enough to sketch in a short time.

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We walk through the Palace Gardens on our way to the Parque del Oeste which is on a hill high above the Palace.

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There we visit the Egyptian Temple de Debod.  The neat thing about seeing this temple is that we actually visited its original location, where the Aswan Dam flooded many temples, several years ago. Now here we are in Madrid, seeing this temple that was saved and given to the Spanish people in thanks for their help in saving the temples at Abu Simbel.

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Two of the original entrance arches to the temple.imageA view of the back of this 2000 year old temple and some of Madrid’s newer buildings.image  I thought this dome was different all in coloured tiles.image  A view of the Palace.  We can see for miles from the top of the park behind the Temple of Debod.imageOn the way home we stop for tapas at the Mercado de San Miguel that we visited the other day.  This is basically a glorified food court in a neat old iron and glass building.  We find some tapas for Bob, and one for me.  Bob has two delicious pastries and I have to be content with taking pictures of desserts. It is hard to find any for me when I don’t eat gluten, eggs or dairy.  I do get a fruit cup…imageThis picture is for L & M, yummy little hedgehogs and Marzipan fruit and veggies with faces.image

Spanish National Holiday, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Guernica

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Monday, October 12, Day 30 of our holiday!

Today is Dia de la Hispanidad, Spain’s National Holiday to celebrate Columbus’s discovery of America in 1492.  There is a Military Parade this morning but it is a bit too early for us, so instead we go to the Palacio Real (Royal Palace) which is supposed to be free today.  However, when we arrive it is all cordoned off and there are lots of police and crowds of people everywhere.imageWe decide that we should wait around and see what is going to happen.  Turns out that King Felipe IV is to arrive at the palace, and after about an hour Bob thinks we should move closer to an entrance that is guarded by mounted soldiers.  Good thing we did because a couple minutes later a cavalcade of cars, and lots of police arrive and so does the King.  Only problem is we are still quite far away and the cars drive up and turn into the palace very quickly.  We both try to take a picture and I mange to get this one which shows the King’s car but not much else.  Oh well….image  We do get to see the mounted troops return from the parade and they are magnificent.imageWe find a spot to eat in the park across from the palace, accompanied by a guitar player singing in English. It was quite nice hearing something we could actually understand. I’ve only managed to learn a few Spanish words: I keep thinking of French words instead of the Spanish ones I have been trying to learn.  They just don’t seem to stick in my mind.imageWe decide to walk to the Reina Sophia museum, only we get lost, repeatedly!  Bob is using a new map app on the phone and either the app or Bob is not working well because we find ourselves walking in the wrong direction more than once.  We do walk past some interesting buildings…image

and a newly planted bed of veggies around a statue that was very pretty.image

And then there are the interesting street performers trying to make a bit of money.  If people walked too close to this one, a head jumped out and scared them.

  1. imageWe end up right back where we started after walking in a big circle so we head for a Metro station near Plaza Mayor, and encounter hordes of people.imageThe subway takes us very close to the Museum, but do you think we can find it?   After some more walking in circles, as it seems to be that sort of a day, we finally spot the museum entrance tucked between two buildings.  We are here to see PIcasso’s famous painting ‘Guernica’. I sneak this photo from afar and through a doorway, just to say I was here.

imageThe painting is very powerful.  It doesn’t reproduce well at post card or even book page size as the brushstrokes, textures, lines and subtleties of the paint and drawing just don’t show up.  I was surprised by how much I liked this painting as it never appealed to me before. Here we are posing beside a couple sculptures we liked.  A Picasso for me…imageand a Jacques Lipchitz for Bob. He liked this one even before he knew it was a sailor with a guitarimage I just loved this little head, ‘Portrait of my son Jordi’ by an artist named Joan Rebull.imageThe hallways made an optical illusion in this photograph. Depending on how you look at it it is an arched ceiling or a big white cone. Can you see it?
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We take the glass elevators up to the fourth floor just to check oiut the views, then down and we head for home.  Can you find Bob?

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Life Drawing Class, El Rastro Market and a Bullfight!

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Saturday, October 10

I finally found a life drawing class in Madrid.  It was difficult, there were no Meet Up Groups, and the schools didn’t seem to have anything, at least anything I could find.  Mind you, most of the information is in Spanish…

One minute quickies.

imageI went to Carmen La Greiga’s studio this morning. Carmen instructs and the class had a ‘Edvard Munch’ theme so our drawing assignments were related to that.  Most of the instruction was in Spanish although Carmen translated for me quite often.  Sometimes I wasn’t sure exactly what was wanted so then I just did my own thing.image  Combining three poses into one composition.image

Carmen introduced me to several of the other artists and they all made me feel very welcome. There were people from all over the world who have come to live here. Madrid is much like Paris that way, it seems to attract people.  Carmen has a lovely little studio, is an enthusiastic, knowledgeable instructor and also teaches life drawing for children, which I think is wonderful.  If you are ever in Madrid and want to draw, check out http://www.tallerlagriega.com

Bob went off on his own to explore the Real Madrid Soccer Stadium while I was at my class, but the admission lines were very long, so he came back to meet me after my class, which was actually much longer than I expected. Carmen does a very nice critique of each person’s work at the end of class and that took over an hour. Bob and I met up in a little park near the Prado, I ate a very late lunch and we decided we would head home early for a change.  Funny, we both saw this strange vehicle today, the riders peddle sideways but it goes forward, and then there were those blonde wigs? No idea what it was all about.image

On the metro I spotted this Michael Jackson wanna-be, complete with make up and a white glove tucked into his belt.  I do love the metro, such great people watching!image

Sunday October 11

El Restro is a famous Madrid flea market whose origins date back to Medieval times.  It takes place every Sunday so that is our first stop today.  The streets are teeming with people everywhere we look.  The market stretches for blocks with booths set up on both sides and sometimes even the middle of the streets.  We wander and enjoy the sights, sounds and smells and even do a little souvenir shopping of our own.image  You can have a bull fighting poster with your name as the matador printed as you wait.imageWe had lunch near the flower vendors and then headed off to Plaza Mayor, a popular gathering spot in Madrid.image

The Plaza ( which by the way is pronounced platha, there are lots of ‘th ‘sounds in Spanish, gracias is actually pronounced grathius!) is packed with people and street vendors and has interesting buildings around it, but half of them are covered with scafolding right now.  We find an information booth and we are told we need to head to the Bull Fight Arena right away if we want to get tickets.  So a quick metro ride and soon we are at Plaza de Toros and the Las Ventas Bulll Ring.  Here is a scale model of the arena.image

Yes, we are going to see a bullfight! I have mixed feelings about this but we have decided that it is something we should do at least once while we are in Spain. The tickets are very reasonable, only 12.60€ each gets us tickets in the fourth row. We were asked if we wanted first row tickets but I didn’t think I wanted to be quite that close to the action!imageBob looks up Los Novilleros, which is the event for today and Google Translate comes back with ‘chopped heifer’.  We hope that something was lost in the translation!  Soon enough the spectacle begins.  The banderilleros warm up, practicing their flourishes and moves with their capes. I am surprised that they are not red.  Turns out only the Novilleros or Matadores have red capes.imageThe Picadores enter the rings on their very large horses.  They are draft horses as they are large and strong enough to withstand the bulls’s charge.  We are  surprised to see that the horses are actually blindfolded during the bullfights.  There are definitely things I don’t like about all this.imageThere are three Novilleros fighting today, these are bullfighters that are still in training as I find out later, and they are fighting bulls who are not aggressive or fierce enough to become ‘toros’.  These bulls are three years old, not five and the young men fighting today are all 22 years old!image image

I take a lot of pictures, about three hundred! I think that helped keep me at a bit of a distance from it all.  Looking through the camera seemed to blunt the reality of what was happening in front of us.  Much of the action was in fact right in front of where we were sitting.  I am very glad we decided against the first row seats!image

There are some tough parts. There is definitely blood, and one of the bulls sank to his knees and had to be coaxed to his feet for the final few passes and the Estocada, which is a final quick sword thrust between the bull’s shoulders and through the heart.  If done correctly it results in a quick clean death.  However, remember these are matadors in training so it wasn’t always quite so quick. In that case, there is the Descabello, which is a shorter sword that is used to sever the bull’s spinal cord, which kills the bull almost instantly.image image

It is brutal, but it doesn’t last very long and I wonder how many animals suffer for just as long, or even longer at modern slaughter houses or when they are wounded when hunted?  The bulls have a very good life up to the time they enter the bull ring, and then a half hour later it is all over, or maybe I am just trying to justify the experience?

I tell Bob that something is going to happen, the air feels absolutely electric, and sure enough a minute or so later the bull tosses the matador into the air.imageHe is pinned to the ground and it takes what seems like a long time for help to arrive and distract the bull.  The pictures are  blurry but maybe that is for the best.imageAmazingly, this young man gets to his feet and continues the fight, even defiantly turning his back on the very bull that just tried to kill him!  These men are either very brave or very crazy!imageThis was the last fight of the night, the arena empties quickly and we head for home.  It was almost ten by the time we got home and have some soup before bed.  We have to find a way to avoid these late night suppers!

Madrid, Bibliotec National, and Museo Arqueológico Nacional

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Thursday October 8

We have a quiet day at home, but we end up spending quite a bit of the day looking for accommodations in Madrid, but we aren’t having much luck.  Madrid seems to be quite expensive, not many places have parking and we aren’t getting answers back from some of the places we contacted.  We decide that we will stay where we are and take the bus into Madrid.  It is a 40 minute ride and Bob is looking forward to not driving for a while.

Friday , October 9

We take the bus into Madrid which works very well.  It is every comfortable, kind of like a Greyhound Bus, and it is very relaxing for both of us.  First stop in Madrid is the Canadian Embassy as we were told we could vote there for the upcoming Canadian election.  Turns out we can’t, as the ballot has to be mailed in and the package was sent to our home address.  The very tall first building is where the Canadian Embassy is located on the very secure 21 floor.  Lots of security in this tower.
imageBack on the Metro to find the Archeological Museum.  I love the metro!  It is fast, easy and offers great people watching.  On our way to the museum we see the Bibliotheca National and I can’t bypass a library so we go check it out, but not before stopping to say hello to this cute fellow.image

The building is very big and beautiful, but we discover it isn’t a public library, entrance is only available if you take a tour, which are all sold out for today. We are allowed to go in and check out a Rudyard Kipling exhibit in a room near the entrance after showing our passports, getting our pictures taken, putting our bags through an X ray machine, and getting a visitors pass!      imageThere was only a collection of Kipling’s books in the exhibit, not too interesting, but the room attached to it had some great old books and manuscripts…imageimage

……including what I think must be a facsimile of a Leonardo Da Vinci sketchbook.  Hard to make out as all the labels are in Spanish.  The staff also tell us about an exhibit downstairs that we can visit.  Turns out it is “Caligrafía Española” el arte describir.  Of course we have to see this.  The first thing we see on entering is this wonderful collection of calligraphy equipment from the 1700’s and 1800’s. Most of these are the same tools used by calligraphers today.image  There are many books and font samplers and these two beautiful examples of flourishes.image image

Finally we arrive at the MAN, the Museo Arqueológico National.  Turns out it is a great museum, and we get to see a facsimile of Lucy.  I remember talking about australopithicus and Lucy when I taught Social Studies many years ago.  Isn’t she beautiful?image

There is a display with examples of archeological sites in Spain, and it turns out they are everywhere.  This Screen grab says it best “Spain, A Huge Archeological Site.”  I think you could look almost anywhere in Spain and find an archaeological site!imageIn the museum there are some very intricate mosaics.image They are even more incredible when you see the size of the individual mosaic pieces.imageThe next exhibit has several room sized floor mosaics that are equally as stunning.image

I love old doors and this one is a beauty.  It just looks as though I am touching it….image

We are amazed at the technology that was in use so long ago, but the one item that probably surprised me the most was the Speculum magnum matrios, a vaginal dilator used  in gynaelogical exams, surgeries and childbirth.  The Romans developed this medical technology in the First Century AD! It is hard to imagine, and this looks very similar to the ones in use today!image

We stop for tea after two hours, and then do our best to see everything else but we ran out of energy and time and I am afraid we rather quickly strolled through the Egyptian and Greek rooms without trying to see and read about everything. There are about fourty rooms here, and they are all pcked with so much to see. We are pooped, but we enjoyed this museum a lot.  It was extremely well laid out, had lots of great videos, English signage and beautiful exhibits.  It always amazes me that so many items have survived so many centuries intact. I also did a few drawings at the museum.imageimage