Madrid...

We arrived in Madrid mid-morning on Wednesday, July 10 only to find that K's suitcase hadn't made the journey with us from Atlanta onward. We were assured that the bag would be sent out on the next flight from Atlanta that day and should be delivered to the hotel tomorrow. Nothing to be done about it at that point so we moved on with getting to our hotel, cleaning up, and settling in for an afternoon nap. We are usually pretty bad at managing the jet lag on the first day (at least), so I was fairly proud of us for actually making it out to a museum later that day.

Our first stop was a visit to Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia during the free general admission hours of 7p-9p. However, we clearly weren't the only ones with the same idea, as the line to get in had us initially concerned. 

Thankfully, the line moved quickly and we were able to get in after a brief delay, although the limit had been reached for the special Dali exhibition right before us. No matter because (a) we had plenty to see in the permanent collection in a limited time frame, and (b) I'm not a huge Dali fan. The Reina Sofia showcases primarily modern art, notably Spanish artists from the 20th century. So, plenty of Picasso to be found here. 

As we headed back to our hotel off the city's main street, Gran Via, we strolled through Puerto del Sol, the starting point for all road distances in Spain. 

We stayed up way too late thanks to our afternoon nap and slept in until noon on Thursday, July 12. So, we got a late start to the day, but again, not too unexpected for us. We started out with a visit to Mercado de San Miguel located just outside Plaza Mayor. What a fun place this was! There are a variety of food vendors selling everything from olives, cheese, meat, seafood, ice cream, beer, wine, etc. in a beautiful restored building. It was a great place to sample a variety of foods in a quick and inexpensive manner. I had the most amazing mozzarella roll and Greek frozen yogurt there!

What follows from here I do not necessarily recommend doing all in one day, but K stubbornly wanted to do everything he was interested in during the limited amount of time that we had in Madrid. After our lunch at the market, we walked over to the nearby Royal Palace (Palacio Real) and Catedral de la Alamudena. Overall, I found the Palace to be much less gaudy than Versailles and, as K noted, with much less art than the Doges Palace in Venice.

Then, it was back to the museum triangle for more art. Our first stop was the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, which housed primarily European paintings from the 13th-20th centuries including some by the French Impressionists. My favorite painting though turned out to be one from a collection of American artists because I was absolutely stunned when I learned who the artist was...(see if you can guess):

At first I thought it was Magritte, but I was clearly wrong as the artist is none other than Georgia O'Keefe! I have to admit that I really enjoyed the selections from the other American artists just as much...Rothko, Hopper, Pollock, etc. 

We then rushed over to catch the free 6p-8p hours at Museo del Prado, which we knew going in would not be enough time to fully appreciate the works here. But, again, K stubbornly wanted to fit everything in that we did for the day. I didn't argue too much though because I knew that El Prado was not my preferred art museum. Nevertheless, I found a few pieces I really enjoyed: Las Meninas by Velazquez of course, The Adoration of the Shepherds by el Greco (the colors were electrifying!), and Goya's "Black paintings." There was also a version of the Mona Lisa, which is said to be an intermediate version of the final painting that was done by one of da Vinci's students.

After a late dinner Spanish style, our whirlwind tour of Madrid ended as we had a morning train out to Pamplona the next day. We had originally planned to spend a bit more time in Madrid, but then we found out the last weekend of the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona is this weekend, so we cut our Madrid time short in favor of catching the festivities of San Fermin. Overall though, I'm glad we did because I was honestly a bit underwhelmed with Madrid. Other than the quality and quantity of the art museums, I really didn't think that there was much unique about this Spanish city. Nevertheless, I wouldn't be surprised to find us back in Madrid for a day or two as an intermediate point for other cities in Spain.

Next up: Pamplona. Ole!