Nice Arrival

So on April 9th, Iberia flew us from Madrid to Nice for a month's stay there in an apartment on Rue du Lycee, 2 blocks from old Nice, 5 from the beach. 

On approach, over Antibes and Cannes

From the airport, we took the bus into town--for about $25 each, persons
of 65 years or older can get a month-long system-wide Ligne d'Azure
pass--our apartment would not be ready until 4PM, so we elected to pass
the time in a nearby restaurant; a contested city, Nice was mostly in 
Italian hands until the 1860 plebiscite...the Italian vestiges are still pretty
strong...and delicieux

Our apartment building at 11 Rue du Lycee...one of the plainest we've
been in, but in a beautiful and obviously upscale part of the city...
location, location, location...two blocks from the old city, four bocks
from the city central square, 5 blocks from the beach...

Apartment tour...Spartan, but that's preferable to the cluttered,
lived-in look; amply equipped and stocked

Dining/work

Kitchen

Entry; the R2D2 figure is actually the portable air conditioner...
which we certainly won't need

Bath

Bedroom #1

Bedroom #2

The beach and Promenade de Anglais, looking west

And east

Street scenes in the immediate neighborhood

Pen store at the end of Rue du Lycee

Post office...our Super U (grocery) is just beyond on the left

Nice public library building just up the boulevard; the
most stunning nearby architecture is the 1929 Lycee, but
it will require its own post

Looking into Place Massena, the city's central square, at night-fall

Flatiron building

Street scene just around the corner

Madrid Out-Takes

The day's caryatids

The day's carillon

En pause

Extreme distress

A leisure suit? Is there hope?

Teeny-bopper fashion

Baroness Thyssen, on her visit to Disney Paris

A camper, lost in Madrid

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition...

Dress-up en plein aire

And you thought it was in Canton, Ohio

No comment

National Archaeological Museum

Some of our better megalithic experiences have occurred on the Iberian peninsula, and we thought the National Archaeological Museum might be a good last stop on our Madrid visit. Though we only did the paleo-through-chalcolithic eras, we were not disappointed. The whole museum would probably take hours and hours. Free for jubilados.

MAN...Museo Archaeologico Nacional...around the other side of the
national library

Nice jadeite axe

Sandals, baskets

We've seen our share of archaeological museums, and this is the first

we seen that paid much attention to class, inequality, etc.

Engraved menhir?

Megalithic

Chalcolithic...bronze age...note molds

Age of metallurgy

More megaliths

"Honey, as long as you're making all those swords and axes, could

you maybe make us some torks and bracelets and golden head-pieces?"

Something about Pac-Man and tennis...

Not in the museum building itself, but below the forecourt, out front,
is the not-to-be-missed re-creation of the great cave paintings at Altamira,
the first of their age to be discovered; apparently free to all

We visited Altamira way back in 2009 and were much impressed 

The re-creation at MAN is impressive, mirrored up and
down and all around so you don't have to break your neck 
looking at the ceiling; us, there

Return To The Prado, 2025

For jet-lag reasons, we scheduled our visit to the Prado late in our Madrid stay. By the time we got there, it was occurring to us that we had visited maybe two dozen art museums in the past year, many of them with multiple visits. Paris, Bruges, Ghent, Riga, Tallinn, London, New York, even Orlando and St. Petersburg, then Washington, DC. And now Madrid. Is it possible to get museum'd-out? we wondered. Compounding this concern, the Prado--now alone among the half dozen greatest museums of western art--still does not permit photos in its galleries. Accordingly, our visit to the Prado this year was a good bit shorter than the three previous rope-drop-until-closing visits. We took in the few masterpieces that most beckoned, zombied past the rest, and headed off for more churros and chocolate. 

Original main entrance, still watched over by Velazquez

Saturday afternoon--our visit was Monday--part of the quarter mile
long line to get in free after 5PM

 

Our one photo, taken, boldly, by Vicki, in the Bosch room--always
the most densely packed in the museum; always cracks me up that 
the most popular painting in the Prado is Flemish, not Spanish

Namely, Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights

And Velazquez' Las Meninas, which I can never look at
without cracking up, thinking of Dali's many references/
parodies..."landlord looking in to see what the crazy painter
is up to..."