We gave ourselves a bit of a break this morning. My husband headed off to the ClarinetFest, which was our actual purpose in coming to Spain. He would meet up with us later in the day. The daughters came to my room a bit later than planned and at 10:25 we headed down to the basement level for breakfast. It was a very white, clean room with the buffet in the center and tables of various sizes around the room. As usual when breakfast is included in a room price, we gave our room numbers, then helped ourselves. There were several kinds of juices and pastries, including chocolate-covered doughnuts, which seems to be a thing in this part of the world. (The next day, I discovered there were also small chocolate croissants, which I enjoyed daily thereafter!) There were scrambled eggs, bread and rolls. Various kinds of ham, cheeses and fruits were on offer.
We headed out at 11:30 after asking directions to the post office. It was warm with some clouds and a bit of spitting rain. The post office was closed, which seemed bizarre. By 11:55, we were in the Metro, where we each bought 10 trips for 12,20 euros. I liked this sign, which is like Mind the Gap, but a little more direct:
At 12, we were on the train, which we found to be cool, bright and modern. At 12:04, we were off at Colon and took time to admire the art and architecture.
There was another statue of Christopher Columbus, which was the reason for the station name:
And I thought the Torres de Colon looked especially cool.
We then headed for the Hard Rock Cafe, where I bought the guitar pin with the Palacio Cybele (Cybele Palace), which is now the city hall of Madrid. No one was eating lunch yet, as it was only 12:20. The exterior has a cafe, but is not one of the really exciting Hard Rock exteriors.
We headed down the street and I suddenly realized the huge building next to us said, "Correos"-the main post office! We waited our turn and then I bought 9,70 euros worth of stamps. Some were for mailing, such as our neighbor's postcard, and others were to save. At 12:50, we were on our way, happy that we'd now taken care of 2 places on our list.
In general, the buildings along our route seemed rather overlarge and bombastic. We supposed this to be due to the Franco era.
We did rather like the Fountain of Cybele in the Plaza de Cibeles.
At 1:10, we reached the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum.
We'd researched the tickets before leaving home and bought the Paseo del Arte, which would let us in to the three museums on our list for just 25,60 euros.
The first art one runs into is the portraits of the former king and queen.
We spent the next couple of hours following the map and enjoying some wonderful paintings, many by people we'd actually heard of. They let you take photos, which is always nice.
Portrait of a Young Man at Prayer by Hans Memling:
While I am not familiar with the artist, I am always thrilled to find a painting with my patron saint, such as Madonna with
Saint Margaret and Saint Catherine by Michael Pacher, c. 1500:
St. Catherine of Alexandria is at the foot of the cross on the left side in the
Rosary Triptych by Hans Suess von Kulmbach (1510). And to think the church took her off of the calendar for a while!
Of course, there were famous Spanish artist's such as El Greco, with his moving
Christ with the Cross.
Now, I'll grant you, that I am predisposed to like Caravaggio and to be thrilled to find out he painted my saint, but this painting pleased me for other reasons. Yes,
Saint Catherine of Alexandria is depicted as always with her spiked wheel and the palm frond denoting virginity. But here, she is holding her ultimate cause of death, the sword. Not only is she holding it, but she is embracing it, both physically and metaphorically. Plus, she is not depicted as a skinny girl and demure. That is a robust body and a strong look on that face. She's a girl I'm proud to claim as my patron saint.
The museum doesn't just have very old paintings. There are some from the early 20th century, such as Wassily Kandinsky's colorful The Ludwigskirche in Munich (1908).
My husband arrived shortly before 4 and we had to suspend our tour. We rain through he rain to the cafe in the courtyard. It was 90 degrees, but the cafe was in a glass building that was well air-conditioned. There were large buttons on the tables for ordering and calling the waiter, but we weren't very good at using them. There were also small bowls of crisps that were tasty, if hard to identify. The food was terrific and the creative kind we've come to expect in museums.
My older daughter ordered the Hawaii con Carne de Ternera, Pina Asada, Salsa Barucoa y Patatos fritas for 11, 25. It was basically a hamburger with pineapple.
My husband ordered the Wrap de Salmon Ahumado con Espinaca, Queso Crema, Pimiento y Aderezo de Encurtidos for 9,75. This was a salmon and spinach wrap.
My younger daughter had Especial Museo con Pechuga de Pollo Empanada, Queso Brie, Rucula, Calabacin Asado y Salsa Tartara for 10,70, which was a chicken empanada.
I had Ensalada Caprese con Lechuga, Tomate, Queso Mozzarella y Pesto, which is caprese salad for 10,50, because we'd been eating so much meat! It was terrific!
Being careful menu readers, we noticed a special for Master Card users, which was 2 for 1 desserts. That could not be passed up! Clockwise, from upper left: Arroz con Leche Casero con Canela, Nuecesy Pina Asada ordered by my husband; Natillas Caseras con Polvo de Galleta ordered by the younger daughter; Sopa de Frutas Rojas con Helado de Frambuesa ordered by me because I love fruit soup; and Coulant de Chocolate con Hela do de Vainilla y Frutos Rojos ordered by the older daughter. We pretty much split them four ways and loved them all.
We all headed back into the museum at 5:15. My husband looked at some things with us and went back to the areas we'd already seen to do a walk-through.
There was a traditional Degas ballerina scene,
Swaying Dancer (Dancer in Green). I'm not sure if I've seen pictures of it before or it is just so much like others of his that I've seen in person.
I do like Franz Marc's work and
The Dream did not disappoint. And, there is that blue horse, that I have been using to introduce German art to my AP German students.
I'm also a fan of Piet Mondrian who's
New York City, 3 (unfinished) is here. You really can't tell that it is unfinished until you get up close to it.
I love surrealism! I was very excited to find one of my favorite surrealists, Rene Magritte.
La clef des champs reminded me of
The Promenades of Euclid, because both involve a window scene.
You can recognize a Roy Lichtenstein from all the way down the hall. This is
Woman in Bath.
The shop had lots of different kinds of items. I was able to find a few postcards with some of the paintings I'd liked to put in the trip album.
At 7:06, when we finally left the museum, it still smelled like rain. The four of us walked back up to the Palacio Cybele to visit the City Shop, whose sign we'd seen when we'd walked by earlier. There wasn't really much other than postcards that we wanted. I really liked the ceiling out in the main hall.
We got to see the other side of the Fountain of Cybele.
At 7:45, my husband headed off to the 10 pm concert, because this is Spain and they schedule things like that. The rest of us took the Metro at Banco de Espana, which was rather hot at 7:53. We were grateful for the cool train at 7:58. We changed lines at 8:05 at Principe de Vergaro for the purple line to take us north to the suburbs. At 8:25, we got off the warm train at Barrio del Pilar. Six minutes later we were at La Vaguada, which was a mostly underground mall of multiple levels. We were there for the Disney store. My younger daughter was in search of Disney Tsum Tsums that a colleague wanted because they were not available in the states. She found a couple, and was able to text him to check on others. My older daughter found some tea at the Tea Shop, which is a Spanish company in spite of the name. The mall also had a whole market area that was cleaning up after a day of commerce.
At 9:21, we headed back to the Metro, with many of the shops in the mall still open. We arrived at 9:28 just as the train did. At 9:47, we changed at the same Metro station. That train took 9 minutes to arrive. At 10:06, we arrived at the San Bernardo station and at 10:15, I arrived back at my room only to find it had not been cleaned. That was really irritating. The maid had been told to come back later and obviously never did. And, the room was still too warm.
