Somos Madrilenos

"Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a trail." -Ralph Waldo Emerson

Arriving at our second stop, Madrid, made me grateful we hadn't started here. Small-ish Seville was much less overwhelming than this city of 5 million. (By the way, I think I should just warn you that I'm not fact-checking anything in this blog. You're going to have to take my word for it as well as my short-term memory of constantly flowing dates, people and places.) Madrid is like a hot, smoky New York City minus the giant skyscrapers. It's full of wild traffic, buildings as far as the eye can see, sidewalks flowing with humanity, and about a million dogs.

Our first full day in the city, we toured the Puerta del Sol/Plaza Mayor area -- the downtown, Times Square-like center. With a free audio-tour, we learned the major historical highlights -- information about more or less enlightened royal and civic leaders (Charles 3rd "the first mayor of Madrid" to Franco the Fascist bad-guy); major social events (assassination attempts, New Years' Eve Festivities, the Spanish Inquisition); and important buildings (post-office-turned town hall, cathedral, and royal palace). Our favorite parts of the tour: 

-Devouring napolitanas at La Mallorquina (croissant-like pastries filled with chocolate, cream, or ham and cheese).

-Buying cookies from cloistered nuns. (You ring a bell at an ancient door, travel down a stone hallway, place your money on a turn-table lazy-Susan, and out come 1/2 kilo of cookies. Seriously cool experience. Even though we accidentally knocked on the wrong door at first. Sorry, Madrilena Stranger.)

-Learning about St. Isidore, the humble farmer who became a revered patron Saint through choosing just to live a devout and worthy life.

-The museum of Raton Perez -- Spain's "Mickey Mouse" who is the tooth fairy to excited Spanish children with teeth under pillows.

-Mercado San Miguel, the outdoor market where for fun we gave everyone 10 euros to visit stalls and buy their own lunches. Some stuck with traditional ham and cheese. Noah went adventurous and sampled sea urchin, octopus, and cod ceviche. I finally got to taste the excellent Spanish olives.

-Discovering Gine Chocolateria, the 24 hour bastion of chocolate con churros. Though full, we returned there in the evening and indulged our chocolate and pastry annual quota.

After lunch, we toured the Royal Palace. It's the 3rd largest palace in Europe behind Versailles in France and Schonbrunn in Vienna. Having been to Vienna, I can only compare it to that. This palace seemed in far better condition of restoration. The interiors are opulent, stunning, and full of splendors as you would expect. The Royal Family has a hobby of collecting clocks, so it was fun to find the outrageous and extravagant clocks in every room. Sure, this kind of thing leads to revolutions, but boy were they cool. The frescoe design of Tolomeo are works of true genius. Isaac tried to get photos, but got shut down fairly quickly by security. I guess there's a reason it seems so well-maintained.

The next two days were devoted to the great art museums of Madrid. If you're not an art fan, you have my blessing to skip the next two paragraphs.

El Prado houses the classic art collection. A crash-course in Art History, we traveled through the photo-realism of Rafael and the Italians, through the Flemish masters, up to the work of the the Proto-Modern Goya. We saw so many of the paintings I've learned about in Humanities and History classes that it's hard to pick a few favorites. I loved Van der Weyden's "Descent from the Cross," Bosch's triptych, "The Garden of Earthly Delights," (totally trippy), and El Greco's "Knight with His Hand on His Chest" was iconic. Anna's favorite was Velasquez's "Las Meninas" and I have to agree that seeing it in full-size makes you feel like you can actually walk into the painting. We walked a whole corridor of Rubens and Titian as well as the early Court-commissioned artwork of Goya. We then followed Goya's work as he became what many consider the Father of Modern Art, or the first artist with a Social conscience. His political "3rd of May" prompted my most visceral reaction. This was followed by his "black paintings." Artwork that he painted without commission on the walls of his home, it is deeply disturbing -- portraits of nightmares. The Goya collection was for me the most emotional part of the museum.

El Sofia Reina is Spain's Modern Art Museum. We started with its most famous artist and his most famous painting -- Picasso's "Guernica." I still can't believe we really saw it! I enjoyed explaining the historical significance of the work and seeing my teenagers experience it. We followed Picasso by picking up Proto-Modern Goya from the day before, traveling through cubism to surrealism, to abstract, to flat-out kooky. We saw works by many of the biggies -- Goya, Dali, Braque, Leger, Gris, Kandinsky, Pollock, Miro. And we were surprised to discover that it turns out Cory is the family aficionado! He even explained some the more obscure relevance of things to us. I knew I'd married a Renaissance Man. The kids, although having enjoyed Guernica, mostly thought most of the art was weird. We had some good chuckles for sure. Our favorite painting wasn't really a painting, but the title of a painting: "The Victors of Leningrad supported by the Colour-Blind Monster Matisse." Go ahead, look it up!

Cory picked up the family's first (and hopefully last) case of food-poisoning, but got through it in time to enjoy our last night in Madrid. We took our "Paseo" back to the city center to see the crazy night-life, eat tapas and pick up one last pastry. A fitting farewell to the Spanish Capital.