Prado Museum

Today we explored some of Madrid's most amazing sites - the Museo Nacional del Prado, the Palacio Real de Madrid, the Madrid Cathedral and the Royal Gardens. These places are magnificent.

The Prado Museum takes its name from the "meadow" (Spanish "prado") which once existed in the area gave its name to the location in which the museum now stands. It is one of the pre-eminent art museums in the world. It's collection rivals the Louvre. There are some huge paintings in the collection, and many fine works by artists such as Goya, Rubens, El Greco, Titian, Valezquez, Rembrandt, Caravaggio, just to name a few. We spent four hours there and still did not see everything. It was an amazing place. The artworks are breath-taking. One could just look and the giant paintings by Rubens in the main arched hall for hours and still see new things in them. One of the paintings that captured my imagination was a 16th-century painting called The Triumph of Death by Pieter Brueghel the Elder. It depicts life as a battle between the forces of death and life, and that death is winning the war and everyone living is, or is soon to be, a prisoner and casualty of death, who is depicted as a scythe-wielding skeleton on a horse leading an army of skeletons swamping the army of the living. It is very graphic, almost cartoonish, and difficult to believe it was painted in 1562.

There are many famous paintings in the Prado, and around every corner, there were new amazing sights to be seen.Read more