Madrid After Dark

We decided to spend the evening in town, tapas crawling, paseo-ing, and just blending in, sort of, with the other 5 million people. Madrid is a lot of things, but one of the main and most energizing things it is is just 5 million people walking around at all hours, enjoying the good life, good company, good food, and good drink. We had hoped to finish the evening with hot chocolate and churros like in Toledo, but the lines into the churrerias were out the door and around the block, and we called it one very long but outstanding day and took the Metro back to Osuna.

In the Plaza del Sol

Ditto; getting really crowded as the sun went down

Plaza del Sol landmark

Me, tapas crawling, sampling the jamon iberico (you really can

taste the acorns) and Rioja

Next stop, a bull bar; ole!

At another place, Vicki sampling the garlic shrimp and a blanco; ole!

And another other place

The cape store; we saw quite a few men in capes in Spain, and

Portugal too; I want one; it would make such a statement in

Montana

A shop where all they do is embroider aprons

 Not the old fashioned way, but not cad-cam either

At the marche de noel, so to speak, in another

plaza

Yet another bull bar, this one in the Plaza Mayor

Reina Sofia Museum and Gernika

A few blocks from the Prado is the Reina Sofia Museum, where they keep the more modern stuff, mostly Dali and Miro and Picasso. Interestingly, it was just as crowded this Saturday afternoon as the Prado.

The Reina Sofia Museum

A long line to get in

Hello, Dali!

Goodbye, Dali, some would say

Dali's "The Enigma of Hitler"; really?

They allow pix all over the Reina Sofia, but not in the Guernica room, where 
four guards have all they can handle keeping people from snapping pix; I got 
mine from the adjoining room, but still got yelled at

Ditto

In one of the adjoining rooms they have studies Picasso did for the final production

Maybe color would have worked

This is Picasso's rather forgettable tribute to all those 
fallen in WWII

A Day at the Prado

The Prado, they say, is one of the world's four or five great museums, and, if you like painting only, and almost entirely Spanish and Italian, 15th-19th centuries, this is the place for you. Also just about every sort of depiction imaginable, to 15th-19th century Spanish and Italian painters and their patrons, of the annunciation, the adoration, the assumption, the conception, the ascent, the descent, the piety, the humiliation, the crucifixion, the many, many martydoms (not nearly enough, however), the judgements (last, next to last etc.), the spoliations, the preachings, the coronations, the visions, the epiphanies, the cardinal vices/virtues, the apotheoses, etc; you get the picture. For me, it might have been an atheological hell. And a lot of paintings of Spanish royalty, nobility, high clergy, etc., also high on my list of personal favorites. On the other hand, it is one of very, very few museums in which I have actually purchased a guidebook, just to make sure we didn't miss any of the 40 or so supreme masterpieces (seriously) and have to come back. But I probably will want to go back some time. Figuring out the apparently Cabalistic numbering system of the rooms was a challenge in itself.

The Prado has a no pix policy and the will and manpower to enforce it. Frowny-faced guards everywhere. In a place like this, you don't dare. But they have a quite decent website which I have referenced below in the "not pictured" department.

Current entrance

Statue of Goya; it seemed like at least half the

paintings were his; despite being (or maybe

because...) the court painter, he had a darker

side, a really dark side, kept to himself, but

revealed in a very large and interesting hall,

all by itself...

Older entrance

Not pictured department (because you can't snatch things from the Prado's website):

I am pleased to say, as a northern painting fan, that of all the famous paintings at the Prado, even including Goya's 3rd of May, nothing drew a crowd except Bosch's "Garden of Earthly Delights," http://www.museodelprado.es/coleccion/galeria-on-line/galeria-on-line/obra/el-jardin-de-las-delicias-o-la-pintura-del-madrono/

I consider myself something of an expert on San Sebastians, and I have so far found only El Greco's version bold enough to paint an arrow into the groin area; http://www.museodelprado.es/coleccion/galeria-on-line/galeria-on-line/obra/san-sebastian/  ouch!

And lastly, I have retitled Velazquez' "St. Anthony Abbot and Paul, first hermit" to be "I'm loving it; or, the miraculous delivery of a cheeseburger to SS Anthony and Paul"  http://www.museodelprado.es/coleccion/galeria-on-line/galeria-on-line/obra/san-antonio-abad-y-san-pablo-primer-ermitano/

Happy New Year in Madrid

From Consuegra we headed back north, past Toledo, aiming for a campground in Madrid that allegedly had wifi. We found it OK, but it was really on the outskirts of this city of 5 million, an hour bus/Metro ride, so we opted, in failing daylight, December 31, for the somewhat closer-in Camping Osuna, a few hundred meters from the Metro and only a dozen or so stops into the Centro. By the time we got to Osuna, it was dark, a wintry mix was falling, the wind was blowing, the temperature plummeting, the place was muddy and dingy, we got the last decent spot, and couldn't find anyone to explain to us how to get to the Metro. While it would have been neat to celebrate the New Year at the Plaza del Sol with 10 million Spanish personnes and other tourists, we opted finally for our own celebratory activities in the Grey Wanderer. Unlike the previous new year, on the Abel Tasman trek, we did manage to stay up till midnight, to welcome in the New Year, 2010. There were plenty of fireworks to see and hear, but, unlike the Kiwi boaties of 2009, it was all over fairly quickly.

The next morning we found our way to the Metro, bought a packet of ten trip tickets, and took the straight shot right into town, the Plaza del Opera, and the Royal Palace, which Vicki thought might be open.  As it happened, the Palace was closed, as was everything else, so, finally finding adequate wifi at the Plaza del Sol McDonald's, I spent the rest of the day there, doing email, blog, trip research, and the rest. Vicki explored the neighborhood a bit, then took the Metro back to Osuna.

Place del Opera in Madrid

The Royal Palace, which was closed New Year's Day, and which we later  opted 
not to see anyway (how many replicas of Versailles can a person handle?)

Across from the Palace

10 in the morning, New Year's Day, everything is closed, yet there are thousands 
of people out and about, just strolling/milling about; I never figured out whether 
they were getting an early start on the evening's paseo or were still paseo-ing

from the night before

On the Plaza del Sol, ground zero Madrid

Anyhow, it was New Year's Day

La Mancha

South of Toledo is La Mancha, an area of high dry plains, not much on the beaten tourist path. I read Don Quixote when I was 58--same age as the Knight--and found it to be one of the most engrossing and impressive books I have ever read. More recently, I read Stephen Marlowe's fictionalized biography of Cervantes (good where it sticks to what is known, not so good where Marlowe is filling in the considerable gaps in Cervantes' life; but he certainly got the character and voice right, by my lights). Anyhow, I had to see a windmill and some little bit of La Mancha. So we drove south as far as Consuegra, the beginning of Quixote country, and a major collection of windmills and other things.

Door curtain in Consuegra, with Quixotic

figures

Square in Consuegra

I wonder whether they serve horse flesh?

Windmills on a hill...no tilting allowed

Hilltop fortress in Consuegra, probably being renovated as

visitor center for Quixote World

The countryside around Consuegra...lots of vineyards (and those

strange jugs) and olive groves; despite recent rain, it still looks

appropriately dry and barren

More countryside and another bullboard

Contemporary windmills; the dots on the hill top are ruins of old

windmills...some indication of the scale of the new devices

Santa Cruz Museum in Toledo

Museum entrance

Moorish stone tablet

Toga! Toga! Second-third century AD, from a

villa in the area

And a 3500BC menhir, with serpentine figure;

people have been living around here for a long

time

Courtyard; the place was originally a hospital;

several items in its collection were from, we

noted, a home for the elderly insane...

Close range target practice on St. Sebastian

El Greco's celebrated Assumption

Jesus and St. John

The Annunciation

A sort of regional museum, the Santa Cruz is best known for its El Grecos but had plenty of other stuff of interest. Alas, unfortunately, they closed early--unannounced--for New Year's Eve, so we did not get to see the tile collection

Toledo Cathedral

West facade and tower; the building is
so hemmed-in, Medieval-style, there is
no vantage point from which you can
see much more of the exterior than this

A last judgement in one of the chapels; the middle
right panel shows those going to hell (always our
favorite) including the very famous adulteress with
the flaming crotch

There was not enough light for the altar (and
windows were not their forte), so they cut a
big hole in the roof, then decorated it in massive
 Baroque style ("Baroque" is Italian for "way
over the top")

More of the ceiling hole decoration

In the Treasury, this is the 8 foot silver
and gold monster they parade around the
city annually for some sort of special
Eucharist

Central nave

Unicorn misericord in the choir; there were scores
of such secular and sometimes risque figures in the
misericord section (where you put your bottom
isn't holy)

The seat backs in the choir all had carvings depicting the
reconquista, the "liberation" of various Spanish towns and
cities, this one Salamanca; military historians, we read,
come to study these depictions to learn of the development
of arms and strategy

Here you can see the tiered nature of the choir seating...
misericordia, then the battle scenes, then famous Spanish
bishops, then figures from the Bible, specifically Christ's
ancestry

The altar, totally over the top (and a lot of
gold from Peru and Mexico, one assumes)

The Baroque organ; there was also a
neo-classical one...

Toledo Cathedral is billed as Spain's finest. It certainly was the most interesting we have seen here so far. One of the chapels holds 18 El Grecos plus many other masters, Spanish and Italian. The Treasury is small but studded with, um, treasures. The best part, for us, was the choir, which was hands-down the very best cathedral choir we have ever seen. I am sure we spent more time in this remarkable building than most infidels. Photography was not permitted, but guards were sparse and not particularly interested, everybody else was openly shooting pix and movies, so we indulged ourselves a bit too.