Iter Facere

Friday July 20 - Madrid

Off museum hunting. Sean discovered the existence of the Museo Naval so we going to add that to the itinerary. Its a fun museum, filled with artifacts and models of Spain’s naval history. Being Anglophone, I tend to forget about stuff that doesn’t involve the U.S. or Great Britain, so the museum’s discussions of Spanish naval affairs off the coast of South America was a surprise to me. The models of the naval shipyards at Ferrol and Cartagena were fascinating. I need to learn more Spanish history, a point driven home later on at the Prado.
As we were entering the Naval Museum, we got caught behind a large group of middle school and younger students on their way into the museum. The older kids were on an English language assignment, so they had a list of questions to ask people and we were conveniently there. It was fun, but we didn’t keep up with them as they went through the museum so we lost our chance to teach English.
Then to the Prado. The collection is a little more limited than I thought it would be. Great Gothic and Renaissance art. I have to admit, though, that I find portraits of kings, queens and other magnificent ones kind of dull, even when done by Goya. We did see Goya’s May painting of the Madrid patriots being shot, which is intense. All in all, I enjoyed the Prado, but I don’t need to rush back, its not my favorite style.
Next was the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum. He was a rich European, his wife Carmen, who looked like Zsa Zsa Gabor collected art. They were having an exhibition of Van Gogh’s final works, painted just before his suicide. That was neat. What can you say about Van Gogh that someone hasn’t already said better than you? Beautiful pictures. That’s pretty profound. The rest of the gallery is nice. It has a broad selection of art from all different epochs of Western art. They obviously got started with their collection after all of the big stuff was swept up, but its a nice gallery to walk around. There is a nice selection of Dutch artists, especially Saloman Jacob von (van?) Ruisdal. Our feet, legs or back gave out and we headed back to the hotel for the evening.
Dinner was nice, outside next to the Opera house. It was the Asador Real, and Sean finally got his roast suckling pig which he shared with Kathy. I had the roast lamb. Dinner was terrific but I ordered a bottle of wine that we just didn’t like. We can’t decide if it was just the style of the wine, or if it had aged too long in the bottle. I don’t know enough to decide, so I’m going to say the style.
We finish dinner at midnight, and there are still thousands walking around or eating. People were sitting down to eat as we left. Amazing.

posted by Jim @ 6:42 AM