La rosaleda del retiro

We avail of the free entry after 6pm to the Museo Reina Sofia to see Picasso’s ‘Guernica”. It is a huge painting but we have to wait for a gap in the crowd to get an uninterrupted view. It is amazing to see it in real life and we get a better understanding of it because so many of Picasso’s preparatory painting are also on display. We see how his ideas for the painting developed over time.
There are several floors in the museum all full of incredible paintings and the building itself is a work of art. There is a covered atrium 4 or 5 storey high. We walk in the open space at just under the roof and the lights from night time Madrid make it magical.
The next morning after a feed of french toast in a lovely cafe, we are ready for more Art appreciation. The Prado museum is next on our hit-list. It is raining heavily when we arrive and there is a queue the length of the building. We are not made of the same tough stuff as these tourists and can’t countenance joining. We approach a steward at the top of the queue and ask about the possibility of free entry in the evening. She kindly opens the barrier and lets us through to the ticket booth to pick up free passes for 6pm. We duck out of the rain and into a second hand shop. While Ruby and Colm entertained themselves dressing up I try to book tickets online for the highly rated illusion museum. The only tickets left for the entire weekend is for 9pm this evening so I book- unsure whether we will have the energy or appetite for it by that late hour!
We have an afternoon siesta and have a quick walk in the Parc del Retiro to energise before of 6pm booking.
The Prado museum is home to so many works of art, its impossible to see them all. We skip whole rooms full of masterpieces. The fact that we didn’t queue or pay to get in, gives us a lovely carefree disposition and we enjoy all we see. We take in works by Goya, El Greco, Caravaggio, Bosch, Rubens, Durer, Raphael and Velazquez and others. It is especially nice to see ‘Las Meninas’ because we had seen so many of Picasso’s studies of this painting in the his museum in Barcelona. Some of paintings we see by Velazquez and Goya are of particular interest to us as they feature in ‘Blood and Gold’ a BBC documentary about Spanish history we have recently watched. Ruby was especially good at spotting them in the museum.
Our feet and eyes are tired when we emerge from Museo Prado and bed is on our minds. We make our way slowly towards our next tourist attraction, filling up on food and fizzy drinks on the way. When we come to the first photo opportunity in the illusion museum a wave of energy hits us and we pose, photograph and laugh our way around for the hour. We are full up with so many visual feasts that when we finally get to bed it feels so nice to close our eyes and go to sleep.Read more