Some firsts for briekfast today—green beans anyone?? Some of the usual European breakfast fare—tomatoes, lettuce with a new twist—chocolate cake. Lots of pastries and churros which took me back to El Paso fiestas.
Tour of Madrid
Spain has one department store “El Corte Ingles” begun by a tailor who made suits in the English style (cut) Now ANYTHING can be bought there from clothing, houseware, to boats, vehicles and houses.
The Biblioteca (Library) of Marid has the original handwritten copy of Don Quizote de la Mancha (Madrid is in the Mancha area)
From the outside. we saw the Palace of Phillip II begun in 1738, which has 2300 rooms and is larger than Buckingham Palace. Wonder what their heating bill is?
We heard lots of Spanish history and it is rather confusing. Basically from what I can figure out --the Visigoths were in control first, then the Romans, then the Arabs (Muslims) after than, the Christians and the Jews. These last three groups keep trading control of the country century after century.
During the ride around Madrid we saw HUGE ads for current American movies. Leonardo Di Caprio as large as a 5 story building starring in” Shutter Island” and then Johnny Depp in “Alicia en Tierre Miriveles” You figure out what that means.
We toured the Prado museum for about an hour. For those unsure of what it is, it is a very nice art museum which features El Greco (more about him later) Velasquez, and Goya paintings. All three are considered to be famous Spanish painters of the last several centuries. All the art from these three gentlemen has very dark backgrounds. The subject matter is mostly religious, with a few court portraits and some mythological scenes. El Greco was not Spanish, but painted in Spain. That is not his real name. He was from Greece and the folks here couldn’t pronounce his Greek name, so they called him El Greco. His style consists of elongated figures of people w/ smallish heads.
Velasquez’ famous picture of the Infanta (princess) of Spain, Margueritte, is fascinating, especially after Maria, our guide, explained the composition of the painting. We were NOT allowed to take pictures inside, but I got postcards of my favorites which I scanned here for you,
That picture of the little girl took me back to elementary school UIL picture memory contest, in which the students looked at a famous picture and told the title, artist and country. I entered, but did not do well in the contest.
On to Goya—One of his most famous was the family of the King (forget which one) whose wife was pregnant 23 time and had 7 children live to adulthood. Very interesting stories about this set of pictures.
We did learn that the use of the colors in all these paintings was terribly expensive.
Of interest to all of us were the numerous children in the museum. There was a troop of 3 year olds- who were all holding on to a rope- being led through the museum. Another group seemed to be first or second graders (in school uniforms) and they sat quietly in rows being taught by a teacher Many teenagers were there, but it never seemed crowded.
By the way—Madrid is “lousy” with art museums- there seems to be one on every block in the main city area.
We drove to Toledo for about an hour. Part of it siesta time—we’re still acclimating to the different time zone.
On reaching Toledo—we stopped at a restaurant on a hill which served us vegetable soup (really tasty) roasted chicken and papas fritas (fried potatoes). The meal was reasonable, considering a sandwich in downtown Toledo is 7-10 Euro.
( I am adding this after the fact--this was probably my favorite meal of the entire trip)
Our first stop in Toledo (I feel obligated to tell you that it is NOT pronounced with a long E—like TOE-LEE-DOO, but TOE-LAY-THO ) We toured the 13th Century cathedral of Toledo. So amazing--- the decoration was Moorish, Rococo (not spelled right, I’m sure, but just say it) Renaissance and Byzantine. Of course, NO CAMERAS WERE PERMITTED but again, I got postcards. Really beautiful place. And I am learning that the professionals who make postcards get much better pictures in dark places than my lovely little Kodak
I’m running out of minutes, so I’ll stop here with only half the day described. The rest will come tomorrow.
Buenas noches a todos. Antes manana
Tomorrow---THE RAIN IN SPAIN STAYS MOSTLY IN TOLEDO!!!
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