Madrid

We're back!!!!

We took a very long (nearly 5 month) blogging hiatus, where we did a large amount of travelling, moved back to America, starting getting back into the swing of things, and shed a lot of tears as we longed to return to Europe. But the details of all that are for other posts. For now, all you need to know is that we are back at it, have some wonderful stories to tell about many great adventures, and that today's is all about Madrid.

I think we've mentioned before how much we've loved everything in Spain, which was probably one of the most surprising things of this entire European adventure. We didn't have any good reason for it, but neither Jenna or I was too particularly excited to see Spain when we thought of the many travels we'd take before we came over. It probably has something to do with us taking French instead of Spanish, and the fact that there aren't many world-renowned sites in the country, but everywhere we've been has been pleasantly surprising. Madrid was no different...

Friday, March 12th

After a full day of working (for Aaron, Jenna of course took the day off!), we caught a late flight out of Gatwick on Friday night, putting us into Madrid at nearly 11pm. If this were London (or most cities in the US, for that matter), an 11pm arrival would have meant a nightmare for public transportation and getting to our hotel. Fortunately, this was Spain, where prime dinner hour starts at 10pm, and you have difficulty finding a seat on a late night ride on the Subway.

We got to the central square and found it teaming with hundreds of Spaniards all wishing Jenna a happy birthday as the clock struck midnight on March 13th. At least that's what I assume they were all there for. Like I said, we don't speak Spanish.

Anyway, as we were still on London time, we made our way through the crowds to our hotel, and got to bed in a hurry as we knew we had a very busy day ahead of us.

Saturday, March 13th

I wasn't able to continue the McGraw family tradition by serving Jenna breakfast in bed on her birthday, but we settled for second best - churros con chocolate. I assume most people know that a churro is a doughnut-y Spanish treat, usually served in the US with cinnamon and sugar. In Madrid, it is traditionally served at breakfast with a large glass of creamy melted chocolate. Genius!!

After dessert-for-breakfast, we headed across town to the first of 3 great museums we'd see in the city. This was the Thyssen, Madrid's 2nd most important museum. Named for the Baron who sold a portion of his vast collection to the state, this museum holds, as Rick puts it, "minor works by major artists, and major works by minor artists." We didn't spend a ton of time at the museum, but really enjoyed what they had there, especially the special exhibition on Monet.

After leaving the museum, we started our guidebook's walking tour of the city. Like everywhere in the country, Madrid is full of winding jumbled streets that open up into enormous open plazas, so it was fun to walk through the town and see what surprise would be around the next corner. One of the most interesting things is that the street signs were all marked with a picture, dating back to the time when most people couldn't read. So for example, this street is where the mail coach left from.

We started off at the main Puerta del Sol plaza at the heart of the city...and the country for that matter. Along with some great architecture, nice fountains and sculptures, and thousands of people, this plaza is home to "kilometer zero", supposedly the exact center of Spain.

We next meandered on to the Plaza Mayor, the 2nd major plaza in the city. This is interesting as it is pedestrian only, and is completely surrounding by buildings (you have to enter through one of a few archways). The architecture dates back several hundred years, and was the best part of the place. Our hotel was literally a stone's throw from here, so we were able to see it a few different times. It was interesting to see it change throughout the day - from vast and empty in the early morning to seemingly small in the afternoon when full of people and restaurant tables and activities.

At this point we took a quick break for lunch, heading across town a bit for a great paella lunch - maybe one of my (Aaron) favorite meals to take away from Europe. We got back on track after lunch, and made our next stop at the Cathedral of Almundena. From the outside this looked like a pretty standard big church, but as it was only completed in 1993, the interior was very unique.

There was an amazing contrast between the white stone walls and the vibrant colors of the decorations. Just when you think you've seen 'em all...

Our last stop on the tour was next door to the cathedral - the Royal Palace. We ended up never having time to go into this palace (mainly from oversleeping Sunday), but it was pretty nice from the outside.

Our plan for the evening was to hit up the Prado - Spain's most important museum - when it became free - after 6pm. We had a little time between our walking tour and the free opening, so we decided to spend it in Madrid's answer to Hyde Park: the Retiro Park. This is the city's main park, and while it pales in comparison to some in London (we might be biased), it was very nice. We didn't make it very far, though, as one of the first things we noticed was the small pond with very cheap boats for rent. We ended up spending all of our free time basking in the sun as we rowed around the lake.

Our last stop of the evening was the Prado museum, which contains, as Rick puts it, the "major works by major artists." It was only free for 2 hours, and this of course was the busiest time for crowds, so we had to hustle our way through the people to see everything...and there was a lot. This museum is the home to some of the most important works in Spanish history and contains works by the greatest artists the country can lay claim to. We saw some famous pieces from Francisco de Goya that I'd learned about in a college art class, which is always cool to see in person. What really struck us both were the works by El Greco. His work was amazing and very different from everyone else. Not sure how to describe it in words, so here are a few stolen web images (no photos allowed in the Prado).

Jenna also really liked Velazquez's Las Meninas, which is good in and of itself but was made better by the fact that almost a exactly year before in Barcelona we saw Picasso's interpretation of this painting, and again it was nice to see the real one up close. See the original and the interpretation below.

After being kicked out of the museum 15 minutes early (as though we weren't already on a time crunch!), we enjoyed a nice dinner and headed back to the hotel for some much needed rest.

Sunday, March 14th

As noted above, we overslept Sunday morning, deciding that sleep was more important than seeing another palace (they are all pretty much the same). Our first stop, then, was the very interesting Temple of Debod. In the mid 1900s, Spain helped Egypt rescue several monuments from destruction when the Nile flooded. As a token of appreciation, the country gave an entire temple to to Spain. So, this is apparently the only place in Europe where you can visit a fully intact Egyptian temple. Probably not exactly a substitute for not making it to Egypt during our time in Europe, but it was pretty cool none the less.

Our next stop was our third and final museum, the Reina Sofia, which is the city's modern art museum. Modern Art is not our favorite, but we like a few things, and this had quite a few nice and interesting pieces. There were some pretty crazy Dali's that made us happy we never did drugs in school, and many others that were interesting to say the least, but mostly good.

The best, though, and the main reason for our visit, was Guernica

As no pictures were allowed the above is from the web (sorry it's fuzzy), and it is even more striking in person to see it taking up a giant wall. Back in 1937, the fascist Spanish leader allowed Hitler to test out his air force in Spain on the small market town of Guernica in the north. The town was completely decimated by the world's first bombing raid, and when Picasso heard about it he scrapped his current project for an art show and completed this in just a few weeks. It is meant to represent the mess of war and the and has become a tribute not only to those who died in Spain and elsewhere during WWII, but to all those that we now chalk up to "collateral damage". It was the perfect expression for Picasso's cubist style - basically picking up all the broken remnants from the bombing and assembling them on canvas. It was very moving.

We left the museum and had very little left on our plate. We went and enjoyed a nice lunch in the Plaza Mayor, then picked up our bags from the hotel and headed back to the Retiro Park, where we spent the afternoon relaxing in the sun, which was a welcome change on our first trip away since the start of the London winter.

We headed back to the airport, saying goodbye to Spain, hopefully not for the last time, as we still feel that it holds many more surprises for us in the future...