{"id":7820,"date":"2006-06-21T22:38:32","date_gmt":"2006-06-22T05:38:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.alephnaught.com\/Blog\/?p=7820"},"modified":"2011-12-11T09:41:26","modified_gmt":"2011-12-11T17:41:26","slug":"madrid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alephnaught.com\/Blog\/2006\/06\/21\/madrid\/","title":{"rendered":"Madrid"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

We got up a little late and slow, grabbed breakfast in the hotel, cleaned up and skipped out to a local travel agent to get tickets for the AVE (high speed) train to Toledo tomorrow (30 minutes – can’t beat that); of course, it took almost an hour to get the tickets because friends of the agent kept coming in interrupting the transaction. Then, we got a cab to the Prado.<\/p>\n

The <\/a>Prado is a huge museum; the collection features Renaissance and later works from Italy, the low countries, France and, of course, Spain. We did the ground floor, which includes a room of Bosch’s, and then had lunch in their cafeteria. Then it was to the 3rd floor for the Goyas and down until we were done. What a nice collection – this really is a must-see museum!<\/p>\n

The Prado, like many European museums, allow artists to paint copies of famous works as long as the copy isn’t identical – we saw a number of painters working in the museum.<\/p>\n

\"Someone <\/a>
Someone learning to paint by copying originals <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Someone <\/a>
Someone learning to paint by copying originals <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n

There are a number of famous works on display especially from artists from the Netherlands (which was governed by Spain before gaining its independence), Italy, France and of course Spain.<\/p>\n

\"A <\/a>
A painting of an old woman <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Bosch, <\/a>
Bosch, “The garden of delights” <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Bosch, <\/a>
Bosch, “The cure for folly” <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Bosch, <\/a>
Bosch, “The table of the seven deadly sins” <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Antonello <\/a>
Antonello da Messina, “The Dead Christ supported by an Angel” <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n

There was a fascinating statue in the main room on the first floor – a casting of a hermaphrodite!<\/p>\n

\"A <\/a>
A statue of a hermaphrodite <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"A <\/a>
A statue of a hermaphrodite <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n

There is a small glass case in the Goya<\/a> exhibit with two painted figures by Goya – notice that the torsos are elongated as Goya typically did.<\/p>\n

\"Two <\/a>
Two figures by Goya – note the elongated torsos <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Goya, <\/a>
Goya, “Dog half-submerged” <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Goya, <\/a>
Goya, “Saturn devouring one of his sons” <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n

There is a small room on the ground floor that you must see – its the medieval painting room. Most important is a small chapel that’s been transplanted to one end of the room – its amazing to see how much art had changed from the Roman to early medieval periods.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>

A wood, painted medieval figure<\/p><\/div>\n

We crossed the square outside the museum, heading towards the Banco de Espana<\/a>, and found a neat little souvenir shop; Aviva bought a little Toledo-style clock and I got a painted miniature of Goya standing in front of his easel.<\/p>\n

\"Two <\/a>
Two figures outside the souvenir shop <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Yes, <\/a>
Yes, we saw a Starbucks in Madrid <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n

Banco de Espana is celebrating its 150th anniversary, so we saw the exhibit. It was small but quite nice, including the royal decree establishing the bank, currency and instruments from the bank, and some paintings of key figures in the bank’s history. Unfortunately we couldn’t take photos and there was no booklet.<\/p>\n

\"The <\/a>
The ticket <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Part <\/a>
Part of the impressive facade of Banco de Espana <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"The <\/a>
The original facade <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Cover <\/a>
Cover of the pamphlet for the exhibition <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"The <\/a>
The articles of the original bank <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n

We walked up to <\/a>Museo de la Real Academia de Belle Artes de San Fernando, which is a nice small museum with a couple of interesting minor works from major artists. There’s a print museum on the lower floor but it was closed until 5P and we weren’t going to hang around. Too bad – it says in one guide book that the print museum sells repulled prints from some of the plates in their collection.<\/p>\n

\"Ticket<\/a>

Ticket for entry - there was no cost on this day<\/p><\/div>\n

We took a cab up to the Puerta del Sol<\/a> and shopped a little. We walked back to the hotel, dropped off the bags (!) and then walked past the hotel to two cermics shops. The first, <\/a>Antigua Casa Talavera, Calle Isabel la Catolica 1, was right around the corner from the hotel. We bought a few things for us and for friends, then hiked on to <\/a>Cantaro at Calle Flor Baja 8. The prices were better at the second place (of course), so we bought a couple more things and walked back to the hotel to drop off our stuff.<\/p>\n

\"The <\/a>
The facade of Antigua Casa Talavera (that’s Aviva over there) <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"A <\/a>
A ceramic detail from the facade <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n

It was still early, so we decided to take a cab back to the Puerta del Sol area to find a religious shop, <\/a>Palomeque, at Calle de Arenal 17. If you want an angel, go here – they have a wall of angels, in addition to a wall of crucifixes and a table of nativity Jesuses. If you need a hand painted, carved nativity, go here…. Aviva, of course, bought a few more things (how will we fit this on the flight to Barcelona?) and then we walked around Puerta del Sol and then back to the hotel.<\/p>\n

\"Aviva<\/a>

Aviva in front of Palomeque<\/p><\/div>\n

We’re tired. We walked all over and it was hot out (the forecast was for 97F) – once again, we at at the hotel. I keep hoping we’ll get a fine lunch out at a good restaurant, maybe tomorrow in Toledo. I crashed pretty fast after eating, Aviva stayed up for a while.<\/p>\n

\"The <\/a>
The entrance to the hotel restaurant – something tells me no one expects this eatery <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Aviva <\/a>
Aviva ordered a wonderful desert based on its name, San Marco cake <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n
\"Enhanced<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\nTranslate<\/span><\/a>\"\"\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We got up a little late and slow, grabbed breakfast in the hotel, cleaned up and skipped out to a local travel agent to get tickets for the AVE (high speed) train to Toledo tomorrow (30 minutes – can’t beat that); of course, it took almost an hour to get the tickets because friends of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1070,1069,143],"tags":[1079,1078,1076,2407,1074,1077,1080],"class_list":["post-7820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-madrid","category-spain","category-travel-foreign","tag-francisco-goya","tag-museo-del-prado","tag-puerta-del-sol","tag-spain","tag-spain-2006","tag-spanish-art","tag-tourism-in-spain"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s2w3Qj-madrid","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alephnaught.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alephnaught.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alephnaught.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alephnaught.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alephnaught.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7820"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alephnaught.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7820\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alephnaught.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alephnaught.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alephnaught.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}