2geonomads

Madrid
Monday 5th October 2015

Gail has pre-booked tickets for a visit to the world-famous Prado museum and we arrive there very early hoping to beat the worst of the crowds, a ploy which proves be fairly successful. The Prado is in some ways similar to the Louvre and the Uffizi Gallery in that its size is completely overwhelming.

We don’t help ourselves by spending far too much time going through room after room of ancient paintings, all too often with religious theme of Christ’s nativity and crucifixion.Without wishing to be too irreligious it’s the same sort of boredom that sets in when one is reading a whodunnit but knowing how it starts and ends.

The second group of rooms is, for us at least, far more interesting as here we see works from some of the great painters, including Monet, Manet, Van Gogh, Goya, Gauguin, Velazquez and many others.

Notwithstanding the earlier criticism the Prado contains one of the world’s great art collections and two such Philistines such as ourselves spend over 5 hours walking these famous halls.

We have managed to pre-book tickets for a late afternoon guided tour of the iconic Plaza de Toros a short distance out of the city.
We join a small group to set off on the tour with a female guide who happens to be Italian.
During my time at college in the early 60’s my Spanish studies included an in-depth study of the culture, language and theatre of this so-called sport which has now been banned in the more enlightened city of Barcelona. However, in Madrid and numerous small towns throughout Spain this ritual lives on and at this the most famous of the bullrings the fanaticism remains undiminished.

The top Matadors earn up to 50,000 Euros per bullfight and having watched a video of such an event I come to the conclusion that they earn every Euro.
A statue outside the Plaza de Toros of one bullfighter who was killed at the age of 21 bears testimony to the grave dangers faced by these men.

To be honest the tour is mediocre at best and putting us through the embarrassment of being photographed, supposedly in a matador’s traje de luces ( suit of lights) does nothing to add to the occasion. Needless to say I don’t see many takers for the photos at 10 euros each.
Return to the area near the attractive Plaza Isabel and enjoy a pleasant dinner at the Vergara restaurant which we had spotted earlier on our walks.

We end up chatting with first a couple from Brisbane and then a lovely elegant lady from the Netherlands and her daughter. Just before we leave the restaurant we are bailed up by a guy from California who is one of those gregarious, pleasant U.S. guys who also seems to have a hearing problem.

Next stop a much-anticipated visit to the city of Barcelona.

Cheers
The Obese Ferret.