One nice aspect of jet lag recovery comes from waking up later than usual after a good night's sleep. That's what this morning brought. We didn't get out of the hotel until 9:30 AM or so, something of a record for the two of us. And, with little on the agenda, we ate a very leisurely (and delicious) light breakfast at the nearby El Cafe del la Opera before setting off for our two museum visits.
We walked across central Madrid to reach our destinations, again marveling at all the architectural excesses surrounding us everywhere we went.
First up was Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza. The art housed in this museum, acquired by the Spanish government in 1993, represents "one of the world's foremost and most distinguished private art collections" as purchased over two generations by members of the Thyssen and Thyssen-Boremisza families. Housed beautifully in the newly-renovated and restored Palacio de Villahermosa, the collection is arranged in chronological order spanning the period from the late-13th century to the present.
The arrangement allows the visitor the opportunity to acquire a rudimentary appreciation course in arthistory just by wandering through the various rooms and listening to the exxcellent commentary provided by a rented audio-tour guide. We did so and learned a lot.
A quick lunch followed at the museum cafe, before crossing the boulevard to the Prado Museum, surely on of the world's best and most prestigious. Here again we rented audio-guides, then rummaged around all over the two extensive floors of the museum attempting to locate pieces of art recognized from earlier exposure to "great art" over decades past.
We kept being distracted, however, both by the crowds (many of them made up of Chinese tourists) and by other wondrous works on display everywhere we looked! Ninety minutes later, exhausted, we slumped into chairs in the museum cafe for a late afternoon snack before strolling back to our hotel.
Both of us were left feeling a bit overwhelmed by the quality and quantity of the extraordinary art we encountered over the course of the day. Especially memorable were the extremely large works whose sheer size adds a great deal to their effect on the viewer and to which no picture in a book can do justice. But we were also surprised by the huge number of paintings we had never even heard of before viewing them, often in passing on the way to see one we had at least heard about or seen reproductions of somewhere along the way. Neither one of us can even imagine having the time and patience to spend even five or ten minutes at a time gazing at each of these amazing works, all of them worth at least that modicum of attention. There's just too much great (Western) art out there!
Back at our hotel, we hooked up with the others in our Grand Circle Travel tour group for an orientation meeting and a short walking tour of the surrounding neighborhood. The latter was cut short when a downpour struck seemingly without warning -- even as the rain fell, weather apps declared Madrid had 0% chance of rain throughout the entire day and evening.
We retreated to a bookstore and then across the street to the city's largest department store where we indulged in gourmet hambergers and looked out ovr the water-soaked cityscape below from the top floor. We were joined by two other couples in the group and enjoyed the resulting conversation, a good omen for the days ahead.
The arrangement allows the visitor the opportunity to acquire a rudimentary appreciation course in arthistory just by wandering through the various rooms and listening to the exxcellent commentary provided by a rented audio-tour guide. We did so and learned a lot.
We kept being distracted, however, both by the crowds (many of them made up of Chinese tourists) and by other wondrous works on display everywhere we looked! Ninety minutes later, exhausted, we slumped into chairs in the museum cafe for a late afternoon snack before strolling back to our hotel.
Both of us were left feeling a bit overwhelmed by the quality and quantity of the extraordinary art we encountered over the course of the day. Especially memorable were the extremely large works whose sheer size adds a great deal to their effect on the viewer and to which no picture in a book can do justice. But we were also surprised by the huge number of paintings we had never even heard of before viewing them, often in passing on the way to see one we had at least heard about or seen reproductions of somewhere along the way. Neither one of us can even imagine having the time and patience to spend even five or ten minutes at a time gazing at each of these amazing works, all of them worth at least that modicum of attention. There's just too much great (Western) art out there!
We retreated to a bookstore and then across the street to the city's largest department store where we indulged in gourmet hambergers and looked out ovr the water-soaked cityscape below from the top floor. We were joined by two other couples in the group and enjoyed the resulting conversation, a good omen for the days ahead.
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