Real Madrid Stadium Tour and Retiro Park

Posted on October 18, 2015 by Trudy

Tuesday October 13.

While Bob went to the Real Madrid Soccer stadium for a tour I went to the public library near Retiro Park to work on my journal.

Madrid soccer club was granted the name Real (meaning Royal) in the 1920’s by the King of Spain. Tuesday was a much better day to tour the soccer stadium as there were no crowds, unlike Bob’s first try on Sunday.The stadium holds over 80,000 fans. The tour is very inter-active, with lots of video screens showing the rich history of the club. Somewhere in this player’s montage is Bob with the European cup. The montage is made up of photos of the day’s visitors.The tour included the top view of the stadium, the pitch, the player’s benches, the locker rooms and the media room. Lots to see in 90 minutes. Soccer equipment has changed a liitle since the 1950’s.We walked through Retiro Park before going home and saw a rather strange art exhibit at the Crystal Palace. There were mammoth bones and a crucifix hanging from the ceiling as well as some letters and other ephemera in boxes and on the walls. The information on the exhibit did little to explain anything. Maybe you can spot the crucifix?The Crystal Palace itself is a beautiful conservatory, but unfortunately it is no longer used for plants, just art exhibits and other functions. I loved the reflections of the trees and the conservatory.

This cute fellow was guarding the pond in front of the conservatory, which had trees growing right in the water. Parks in Madrid are much like parks in Paris, with lots of hard surfaces, plantings of trees, shrubs and flowers and a bit of grass, which you usually are not allowed on. With so many people using the parks it is the only way to maintain grassy areas.Retiro park has a large ‘pleasure’ lake with row boats for rent and a half moon colonnade with a large equestrian statue of Alfonso XII. It was a bit cool today so no boat ride for us.
Another view of the park.We exit the park here and catch the metro back to Moncloa Station to catch our bus home. Almost everywhere we look in Madrid there are beautiful buildings. It sure makes the architecture in Edmonton seem rather drab.

It is a 35 or 40 minute bus ride home, but it is quite relaxing and Bob is enjoying the break from driving, and I am happy not to have to navigate. I am finally doing a bit of drawing on the metro and bus

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

Posted on October 16, 2015 by Trudy

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.We 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…. We do get to see the mounted troops return from the parade and they are magnificent.We 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.We 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…

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

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.

We 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.The 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.

The 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…and a Jacques Lipchitz for Bob. He liked this one even before he knew it was a sailor with a guitar I just loved this little head, ‘Portrait of my son Jordi’ by an artist named Joan Rebull.The 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?

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?

Dragons and Beasts!

Posted on September 19, 2015 by Trudy

This building was a bullring, but bullfighting was banned in Catalonia in 2011 so now it is used for concerts and other events. We walked by it on the way to a flea market this afternoon. We found the flea market and it is huge, two stories and probably hundreds of stalls. We decide we will need to come back when we return to Barcelona and have more time to spend looking around.We make our way to Parc de La Ciutadella, to check out the Mercé 2015 Festival activities. There are a lot more people here today than a couple of days ago. I loved the balloons and the people watching.

There were some antique rides that were very interesting. Notice the toilet seat…And the lady in white, she was pushing a lever that made the ride move.

There were some very good dancers on stage, I think from the ballet company, not sure as all the announcements were in Spanish…there were crowds of people everywhere.

Next stop was Placa Jaume where the Parade of the Fire Breathing Dragons and Beasts was supposed to start. We had to turn around and approach the square from a different street because the one we were on was completely jammed with people. I have never been in such a crowd before, and I didn’t like it at all. We could barely move, but managed to turn around and make our way to the other side of the square. We were very lucky as this was where the dragons and beasts came into the square. There were people eveywhere, even up all the side streets, but we were in a good spot up against the railing so we didn’t feel as squished as earlier. Here are a couple photos of the crowd.Soon the Dragons and Beasts emerged, with great fanfare and to the accompaniment of very loud very enthusiastic drumming. Each beast had it’s own group of supporters, who were making a great deal of noise.

The pictures are a bit blurry because it was so dark and these dragons and beasts moved quite quickly and it was hard to find a spot that didn’t have a camera held up in it! The energy generated in this square was amazing, and very exciting. I loved it. After all the dragons and beasts left, we headed back to Barceloneta Beach to watch the fireworks by Buenos Aires. The show was a bit shorter than last night’s but it was much more spectacular. There were even Happy Face fireworks, but I never managed to get a picture of them. There were also a lot more people out and about watching the fireworks and on all the streets. We head back to our apartment, get home about 11:00, we are both tired as we did a lot of walking today, but it was a good day.

Parc de la Ciutadella and Life Drawing

Posted on September 18, 2015 by Trudy

This morning I was very tired so we had a much needed quiet morning, and then after lunch headed out to find the Parc de la Ciutadella. A young Antoni Gaudi helped to design the very flamboyant Cascade Fountain which turns out to be the main attraction of the park.

This Baroque fountain is very impressive and has winged golden horses with serpent tails rearing over the waterfall.My camera is acting up, not always focusing, taking weird pictures on one of the settings. I am wondering if I will need to buy a new camera before the trip is over?

This is the Castell dels Tres Dragons, which is now a Natural Science Museum but it was roped off and not open. Neither was the Hivernacle and Umbracle (a wooden slatted greenhouse) and the other Natural Science Museum. That was a bit of a disappointment, but it was a nice walk around the park anyways.

We head back towards the Old Town to check out the Merkat de La Boqueria near La Rambla. We walked down La Rambla last night, this is the famous Barcelona street, comparable to The Champs-Élysées in Pars, with hordes of tourists, and the Merkat (don’t you love the spelling?) was just closing. We came back to check it out today. We look for somewhere to eat but it isn’t easy for me. I have dietary restrictions so no gluten, dairy, egg or soy, which is in pretty much every Spanish dish! Finally found a Wok While you Walk which made a stir fry that I could have. There would be lots to eat if I didn’t have these restrictions and it is a bit hard passing all the pastry shops, they look so very yummy.

These sausages looked very interesting, and the meats were very fresh and nice looking but also very expensive. We saw one type of roast that wa 99€ a kg! Of course there were some ‘different ‘meats available. The fruits were spectacular and beautifully presented.

There were hundreds of these little photographed tiles that were assembled together to make a mural representing Moments of Freedom.
The sun lit up the steeple of the Barcelona Cathedral as we passed this street. Remember what I said about something to see every which way we look? I asked these policia if i could take their photo and they said yes, but the one with the machine gun turned away so he wouldn’t be in the picture. That wouldn’t stop me from getting the photo I wanted, so I crossed the street, zoomed in, and took this photo instead. It is still strange to me to see machine gun toting police. We head back to the Life Drawing Meet Up location and after entering a very ordinary outer door this is what we saw! The Meet Up was up on the fifth floor, a beautiful big apartment turned into an art studio/office.I had a great time at a Life Drawing Meet Up last night. It was a session with a Pin Up Girl theme, and Ana, our model, was excellent, a true pin up girl! Here are a couple of my drawings. I felt a bit rusty as I haven’t been drawing for the last month or so, but it was a lot of fun and a good kick start to holiday drawing.