a tour of Madrid
Today was the first full day after Viking took the reins and did the planning. We started off this morning with breakfast downstairs (instead of in the lounge, where we’d been going). We liked the bigger variety of food available downstairs, but we preferred the quiet atmosphere of the lounge. Not sure where we’ll go tomorrow.
Anyway, we hit the ground running this morning with a bus ride through the sights of Madrid. As much of what was saw was out a bus window, lots of the photos were marred with window reflections and weird tinting and such. I did get a couple of decent shots, though…
Before long, we were off the bus and on foot, following guide Vicki. She was informative, easy to understand, and had a good sense of humour.
We saw the original City Hall, a fairly small little building on a square.
Across the square from it is the oldest building in Madrid (circa 1500s)
On the square, I got a pic of Ken taking a pic of Heather. Very meta.
The Plaza Mayor was nearby, which was impossible to photograph without using panorama mode.
Also, we learned that Madrid is famous for a particular sandwich and people come from all over to have one here. Philadelphia has its cheesesteak, New Orleans have their Po’Boys and Muffulettas, and Madrid has….. a squid sandwich. I didn’t even know that was a thing, but apparently it’s all the rage and has been for ages.
We ended the tour at Museo del Prado (Prado Museum).
The museum is very well done and everything is showcased nicely. (Photos of the artworks were not allowed, but I did sneak a shot of one room)
I had mixed feelings at the Prado. When you visit a museum and they have lots of art around, but one or two signature pieces from an iconic artist, those pieces feel very special and you feel very lucky to get a chance to see them.
If a museum in, say, Toronto or Chicago or Los Angeles had a major work by Goya or Velazquez or Picasso, you’d be really impressed and would approach the art with reverence. But if you put that same painting in a room with 20 other paintings by the same artist and that room is only one of several rooms with dozens more of his paintings, then that one masterpiece seems to lose some of its mystique. So seeing Las Meninas in person was still nice, but it was just another painting in a room full of them. (Not my photo of the art, obviously)
The collection is actually a bit overwhelming in that regard. By the time you get tired, you’re walking past masterpieces with barely a glance - I’m sure we saw far more iconic paintings than we acknowledged. We had the option to stay longer and take a taxi home, but we opted to head back on the bus. We had a short breather in the lounge with a tapas snack or two, then Rob and I headed off to find an Egyptian temple, which is in Madrid because reasons. That involved navigating the subway again, so we got Rob a transit card and off we went to Plaza de España.
There’s a large park here with both modern and antique sculpture. One moment, you’re passing some shiny metal twisty things and the next, you’re standing in front of Monumento a Miguel de Cervantes, a marble tower with a central statue of author Miguel de Cervantes (seated), plus several characters from his works, most notably Don Quixote and Sancho Panza in front, not in marble. This work was installed in 1929 with Don and Sancho, Miguel, and the globe with the women at the top. Other statues were added later, the last one in 1960, but it still hasn’t been finished. It might never be.
Beyond the art garden, the edge of the park had some lovely architecture.
A short walk from there and a climb up some stairs led to a nice park area with trees and shade and grass. We liked it a lot.
The centrepiece of the park is the Templo de Debod, originally built around 200 BCE and then disassembled, moved, and reassembled here in 1972.
If you really want to deep-dive into why it’s here, you can look it up, but the short version is that Egypt was building a dam and lots of these temples were going to be affected. UNESCO sent out a plea for money to save them and some of the larger donors (Spain was one) were “given” one of the rescued temples as a reward for their generosity. So the end result is you can now face a certain direction in Madrid and see ancient Egypt and modern Spain at the same time.
Since the park is on top of a hill, you get a nice view of the city and the Royal Palace from here, too.
Then it was back to the hotel, where we’ll meet up with Heather and Ken in the lounge for happy hour, then head out into the neighbourhood to try a restaurant Ken found. Should be fun.
Big day tomorrow… stay tuned.