Sierra & Alan See the World!: Madrid

The overnight bus from Cádiz to Madrid was uncomfortable, but Alan and I both slept more than we had expected. We joined the morning metro rush hour to get to our hostel right in the heart of the city center. It was right across the street from Plaza San Miguel, which holds a gastronomic market during the day and well into the night. We were very excited to check out the brightly-colored fruit and pastry stands that we could see through the plaza windows, but decided against buying more than a smoothie and a Spanish cookbook because this food was pricey; U.S. cherries were being sold for 16 Euros per kilo!

Mercado de San Miguel

Other notable landmarks that we surveyed on Thursday morning were the Catedral de la Almudena and the Palacio Real (which was the royal residence until 1931 when the royalty fled Spain). Then we headed out to the Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Spain’s contemporary art museum most well-known for holding Picasso’s Guernica. Guernica is one of those paintings that are worth it to see in person, mostly because of its size. When looking at a small print it’s really hard to see the whole picture at the same time as seeing all of the details. The Museum also displays photos of the painting’s progression while it was being completed. It was neat to see how much the piece changed from its beginnings.

The Reina Sofía also brags up its works by Dalí, Miró, and Gris. Displayed there are several films and photojournalism and propaganda from the Spanish Civil War. These were a few of my favorite pieces from the museum: “El enigma sin fin” – Dalí, “Les anguilles de mer” – Picasso, “The Woman” – Renau, “Das Triadische Ballett” – Schlemmer, “Tertulia” – Santos Torroella, “Las Nuevas Savias” – Antonio Saura.

I have to admit that we kind of jogged through the upper floor and completely skipped the temporary exhibitions. We had been there several hours and were hungry, cold (crazy air conditioning!), and are unapprised in appreciation for most art created in the last few decades. So we grabbed some sandwich-fixings from a supermarket and picnicked in the nearby Retiro Park.

But our education in Spanish art extended further back than the 20^th century. We spent almost the entire day on Friday at the Prado, where we got a good dose of Spanish art beginning in the 14^th century, and I was also refreshed on some Italian and Flemish masters from my art history classes. There are quite a few works there that have been pounded into my skull, like Velazquez’s Las Meninas and Los Borrachos, Rubens’ Three Graces, Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights and Haywain, Durer’s self-portriat, Caravaggio’s Deposition, and lots of works by Goya and Titian and El Greco and so many more! A new favorite piece of mine is Atenza’s Tooth Puller.

The rest of our day and the next morning were spent wandering around town to see a few sites that we had skipped the day before, including the Crystal Palace at El Retiro Park, the cathedral San Francisco el Grande, the monument to Cervantes in Plaza Espana, and the Templo de Debod. We also spent our last night in Spain doing a tapas hop.