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| waiting in Montreal |
And so. A done deal finally and we got away from Pierre Trudeau Intl after some hectic flight and carrier changes thanks to Marie's patience and diplomacy. On time actually and the day we had originally planned, April 1st and hopefully not the joke about two April fools stumbling about the worlds airports. Lufthansa had decided to hold a three day walkout or some such thing so we scrambled to get new tickets on Air Canada, now going to London's Heathrow instead of Munich and then on to Madrid in the wee small hours, but when we arrived in London we found out Air Canada had forgotten to issue us tickets on to Madrid. Another plane missed even though we had ran like crazy people through Heathrow throwing dazed travellers aside to arrive breathless and dishevelled at the check-in counter to be told we couldn`t board without tickets. We waved our useless boarding passes into the face of the attendant but were politely told to go over to the British Airways desk and have them try to get us on the next flight out. Finally we managed to get seats on a cramped Air Iberia puddle jumper and two hours later found ourselves gliding down in fog and rain onto Spanish soil for the first time, snippets of the tune "
The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain..."foolishly playing in my head. A washroom was the first priority for me after that two hour rollercoaster ride. I hadn't been much help the past 8 days with my ongoing and persistent gastrointestinal pains and rushes to the men's room - including a day in hospital getting rehydrated from said rushes - but slowly feeling better and eating some solid foods again. But for how long is the question and I fear bringing on another bout unless I'm very careful of what I put in my mouth in the next week or so. One cannot go to Spain without trying the local cuisine but for now its easy does it. Once through customs, which took all of 30 seconds, we found an express bus to downtown and walked ten blocks to our hotel.
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| sunning finally in Jardines del Buen Retiro Park, Madrid |
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| boarding our tour bus |
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| Madrid! |
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| one of the many gates in the city found at centre of roundabouts |
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| Tapas, pre-lunch snack |
First impressions of Madrid? Clean, efficient and serious, with fantastic architecture everywhere. But it is a government town and the capital. Our hotel, Vincci Soma, in the Salamanca district and centre of Madrid, was happily to our satifaction and, after a hot shower, we were ready to check out the nearby stores. Every thing stays open late here in Madrid, people dont start work till 10, eat á small lunch at 2 and have a big supper any time after 9. We had some local food and wine, did a bit of shopping and picked up some cheese, bread and local fruit of the vine to enjoy before bed and had the best rest in days.
We woke up to a cool, overcast sky with a welcome sun breaking through the clouds every once in a while and had a healthy and tasty breakfast in the hotel restaurant - yogurt, bread and fresh fruit - before going on a three hour bus tour of the city for 9am. It was really a good way to orient ourselves to the downtown and had a chance to see the Casa de Campo, Mayor Street and Square, Puerto del Sol, Retiro Park, the Santiago Bernabeu football stadium, Castilla Square and passed the many and must-see museums we would return to. It was warm and sunny after lunch and it was off to the Museo del Prado. And it was here we would experience an unforgetable and, to me at least, emotional artistic re-awakening...
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| The Third of May by Goya |
The Prado Museum has been around since 1819, created by King Ferdinand VII and his wife Isabel of Braganza, and recently extended to house more temporary exhibitions. Those showing while we visited were an exhibit by Rubens (1577-1640), entitled
The Triumph of the Eucharist. Here were displayed four of 20 huge tapestries he was commissioned to do in 1622 for the convent of the Descalzas Reale in Madrid. Alongside each tapestry was a small modelli and oil paintings where he set out his initial ideas for each tapestry. Also, on loan from the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp, was Jean Fouquet´s ´
The Virgin and Child with Angels´ one of the most amazingingly original works to come out of the 15th century. The right hand part of a diptych, the colours in this painting - the background reds and blues, the ivory-white skin of the Virgin Mary which create an extraordinary effect - only help emphasis the unatural details. For me the perfectly round breasts, which were drawn with a compass, and the tiny head of Jesus are disconcerting. But just to see this was a delight for both Marie and myself. We also saw an exhibition entitled the ´
Furias´, works done by Langetti, de Ribera and Tiziano from the 16th and 17th centuries. Here in Spain the name the ´Furias´was applied to four inhabitants of the Greco-Roman Hades, to where they were condemned for defying the gods -
Tityus, whose liver was constantly pecked at by a vulture for having attempted to rape one of Zeus´s lovers,
Tantalus, condemned to try to obtain food and drink for having served up his son at a banquet of the gods,
Sisyphus, who had to roll a huge rock forever for having revealed Zeus´s infidelities, and
Ixion, sentenced to turn forever on a wheel for having seduced Hera. Dark and gloomy stuff! One other temporary exhibit at the museum was El Greco´s ´
Library¨ When he died in Spain in 1614 his possessions included 130 books, 39 which were on display with El Greco´s comments written in them where he expressed his ideas on architecture and painting. But the permanent collection of the Museo del Prado was the highlight of our visit to Madrid and worth the trip to the city if for nothing else!
I won´t go into too much detail but must highlight those paintings that I studied and learned to appreciate and love when I attended the Ottawa School of Art a few years ago. And to see them in all their glory and in this setting was almost to much to bear! Here then is a partial list of the Masterpieces I stood rapt before: ´
The Cardinal´by Raphael (1510), ´
The Buffoon Don Diego de Acedo´ by Diego Valazquez (1635), Rubens ´
The Adoration of the Magi´(1609 and 1628), Francisco de Goya´s ¨
Saturn Devouring his Child´(1821-23), ´
The Third of May´(1814), ´
Children on the Beach´by Joaquin Sorolla (1910), and ´David
Victorious over Goliath´by Caravaggio (1600-1605). I had to sit down after this experience to recover and can, as they say, now die happy!
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| breakfast in our hotel |
The next day was spent in exploring the city, taking the very efficient Metro and spending a few hours in the Museo Nacional de Antropologia. As the internet is slow everywhere I haven´t uploaded as many photos as I had planned. Hopefully I will be able to have more from our Madrid stay in the next post. Including pictures of a very expensive meal of
Paella (a rice-based Valencian food with mixed seafood) that Marie had been craving. Our last night in Madrid so keep doing what the Madridians do best: eat. Thus it was a very late supper at the hotel - we finished at midnight! - and packed for the next leg of our journey. We would next be boarding a high-speed train to the Mediterranean and.... Barcelona!
gws
