Belated TR: Spain- Madrid (21-22 Aug 2009)
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We drove from Barcelona to Madrid, dropping our rental car off at the airport and using the subway to take us right to the center of the city.
Madrid is Spain’s capital. Though it doesn’t possess the same magnetic energy pervasive in Barcelona, Madrid is still a vibrant city.
Puerto del Sol, one of Madrid’s central hubs, as seen from the window of our hotel, Hotel Europa.
Puerta del Sol is appropriately named. The sun beats down and scorches this literal hot spot, especially in August when the heat is seemingly unforgivable. The streets are covered with awnings to help provide a bit of much needed shade.
We spent most of our time strolling around the city, enjoying the scenes that were painted in front of us around every street corner.
The Plaza Mayor is beautiful.
Typical Spanish Menu
One afternoon, we sought solace from the heat in this Irish pub.
One of the main sights we visited was the Palacio Real. Built in the mid-1700’s, the palace is still owned by Spain’s royal family, although they do not currently live there.
This is the main post office, the Palacio de Comunicaciones on the Plaza de la Cibeles. The building is called “Nuestra Señora de Correos” (Or lady of the post) by the people of Madrid. It was built between 1905 and 1917 by Antonio Palacio and Julián Otamendi in a historicist monumental style.
The Museo del Prado, another art museum, had some amazing paintings. My favorite was the Garden fo Earthly Delights by Bosch. Can you believe this was painted in 1504? (Click on the picture to zoom in).
The Garden of Earthly delights reminded me more of paintings created over 400 years later by Salvador Dali than what was typical in the 1500’s. This Dali painting is one we saw in the Queen’s musuem, Centro de Arte Reina Sofia.
Dali’s Invisible Man
Photo from Larval Subjects.
In my previous blogs about Barcelona I mentioned Joan Miro. He has a whole museum dedicated to his work in Barcelona. I posted an example of his art then, which was very colorful. But, I neglected to say that most of his art actually looked like this.
This is Miro’s “Landscape”. Yeah….
But, the Centro de Arte Reina Sofia also had a good collection of Picasso.
The museum had a whole room of Picasso paintings that featured a crying woman, probably an outlet for the tragedies surrounding the horrid Spanish Civil War.
Madrid is also full of street performers. These musicians sounded fantastic.
For our last night in Spain, we enjoyed another delectable dinner of tapas. As we strolled around the streets of Madrid we took time to soak in the sights of the Spanish lights with painted the city with new colors not visible during the day.
This concludes my blogs about my trip to Spain. From food to art, from magic to magnificence, Spain is an extraordinary place to visit. I can’t wait to go back 🙂
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