25 March – Madrid

Our third and final day and night here.

On today’s agenda was a morning bus tour of Madrid with a couple of photo op stops and an afternoon spent at the Prado art museum.

The day was overcast and evidence of an early morning shower was everywhere, but we were fortunate enough to avoid getting caught in the rain ourselves. Plus, as the day progressed, the weather improved bit by bit, culminating in some actual sunshine just before sunset.

On the bus ride to our first stop, we passed a couple of Madrid landmarks that I was able to capture through the rain-streaked windows of our bus.

We left the bus at what is now the “oldest” building in Madrid…oldest because it is a genuine, transplanted Egyptian temple: the ancient Nubian Temple of Debod. The building was gifted to Spain by the Egyptian state in gratitude for their part in the international effort to preserve the Abu Simbel temples from the rising waters of Lake Nasser after the Aswan Dam was completed.

There was a small problem when the deconstructed temple arrived in Spain, according to Juanjo. Just as was done with the Abu Simbel temples, each block of the Debod temple was numbered for easy reassembly in Madrid. However, many of the stone blocks were tagged with the same number, making it exceedingly difficult to put it back together again. Or so we were told.

The park setting for the temple is atop a hill that had formerly been an army base. Sitting above Madrid as it does, there was a great overlook of the entire city from here. And ’twas a perfect spot for a selfie.

Our next stop was at the Royal Palace of Madrid. Having been to Versailles, the French influence was obvious to us. Its construction was initiated by the Bourbon (read: French) dynasty after the original Moorish castle was destroyed by fire. It is the largest palace in Europe with over 3,400 rooms and is twice the size of Versailles.

Across the street, a small garden, the Plaza de Oriente, leads to the Madrid Opera House, the Teatro Real. One side of the plaza is lined with statues of Iberian rulers throughout the peninsula’s history that were originally intended to look down from the roof of the palace. Unfortunately, architects advised that the statues’ weight would wreak havoc on the building, so they stand here while a row of stone vases fill their intended spots.

The final stop on today’s Madrid tour was the Prado museum where a large number of our group, including ourselves, had purchased timed admissions to the museum before arriving in Madrid. Our entry slot was for 2:15 PM…but we decided to chance it that no one would stop us if we confidently secured our tickets and entered the museum early. Our gamble paid off. And, after a light lunch in the museum’s cafeteria, we set out to check out the art.

Since our time at the Prado was limited, the museum was enormous, and the crowds were stifling, we three took our lead from one of the guide books that contained a deconstructed image of the museum, floor by floor. Arrows indicated the “must see” works and their locations in the maze of corridors and rooms. So we set out to find each designated work. Often, we knew we were close when we came across large groups of stationary people staring at a wall. They were apparently using the same playbook as us to navigate the collection.

Here’s a collage of the paintings that became, for us, the defining works from our visit to the museum.

That pretty much wrapped up the day–for me, at least. We art lovers were picked up at our designated location just south of the Neptune Fountain and we all returned to the hotel.

At 5:45 PM, (most of) the tour group reconvened on the bus for a GCT-hosted dinner. I chose not to attend for personal reasons. (Nothing sinister or mysterious. I just needed some me-time to attend to some me-things…which I did.)

Tomorrow, we leave Madrid behind and depart for our 2-day stay in Granada as we begin our exploration of Andalusia on Spain’s southern coast. But first, we visit Toledo, the former capital of Spain and renowned as “the city of three cultures.” (Not like Ohio’s Toledo whose two “cultures” are making glass and building Jeeps.)