TOUR DE MADRID

Our third morning in Spain's capital city was spent touring the city by bus, visiting sites we had already seen on prior days, driving around areas at some distance from our hotel while listening to comments from our city guide -- " On the right, we are coming up on ..."; "To the left you will see ..." -- and getting caught in traffic just as the scenic overview was winding down.  Not the most auspicious beginning but bearable enough in the final analysis.

By the time the bus left us back at our hotel, we really didn't have time for more than a quick granola bar before we headed off to the museum we had found closed when attempting to visit two afternoons ago.  We didn't want to risk missing the entire experience yet again, and we knew the place closed at three SHARP!

Our haste proved worth the effort.  The Museo Cerralbo, it turned out, proved the highlight of our time-to-date in Madrid!  Established through the efforts of the seventeenth Marquis of Cerralbo, Don Enrique de Aguilera y Gamboa, in the early twentieth century, this house museum essentially
recreates the essence of Spanish aristocratic life as experienced in the late nineteenth century.

The small garden and adjacent summer rooms initilly struck us as interesting but nothing too special, aside from the marevelous chandeliers hanging from every ceiling and the multiple works of art covering every square inch of wall space up and down the hallways leading from room to room.

The entrance hall and the upstairs rooms, however, changed our perceptions one hundred percent.  We marveled at the accumulated collections housed here in seemingly endless profusion: "the marquis," it turned out, "collected painting, sculpture, coins and metals, ceramic ware, tapestries, "furniture, drawings, prints, clocks, weapons, armour, and any other objects that attracted his scholarly attention or curiosity."

Shortly before his death in 1922, he purchased half of the city residence belonging to the Marquis of Villa-Huerta to house his accumulated bounty.  The Spanish state inherited the collections and completed both the purchase of the remainder of the mansion and the renovation of the structure into the current museum.

The marriage of house and museum works extraordinarily well.  Visitors come away with a much better understanding of just how collections like these as accumulated by the wealthy were displayed and utilized withhin an aristocratic residential setting.  But, wow, talk about "overkill" and "excess" - nineteenth century Spanish aristocrats clearly give no quarter to today's One Percent, that's quite clear!

The only question we were left with after our ninety minute visit, in fact, revolved around "How in the world did the Marquis ever have the time and energy to amass all this "stuff"?

Our first full day "on tour" ended fittingly enough with a fine group Welcome Dinner at Galopin, a comfortable and homey restaurant just off the Grand Via.  We strolled back to our hotel among the growing Friday night crowds headed out for the beginning of the weekend to come, marveling over and over at the liveliness of everyone around us.

Indeed Madridians seem to "work to live" rather than the other way around. 

TWO MUSEUMS AMUSE AND EDUCATE

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.

TAPA D' DAY

Having only "shut our eyes" on the six-plus hour overnight flight to Madrid, once we arrived at the Tyre Ambassador, our hotel for the next four evenings, both Heidi and Lee fell quickly asleep for a couple of hours despite the mid-day timing of our arrival.  But jet lag didn't keep us down for long.

Although we took it easier than might otherwise have been the case, we still managed to make our way to Plaza de Espana (once the center of the city and dominated by a huge monument to Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote, his faithful Sancho Panza and the love of his life, Dulcinia).  Our first (late) lunch followed at nearby Taberna Origen, a tapas fusion restaurant featuring only organic ingredients.

We started off with an appetizer, a glass of white wine and some fresh, hot bread before digging into a delicious fresh greens salad, some yummy chicken croquettes and vegetables done up tempura style.  Our waiter insisted we try a complementary glass of herb-infuse aperitif to finish, claiming it would help improve digestion.  Who'd argue with that?  And the whole feast came to barely twenty euros!

The only downside was that we tarried so long over lunch that we missed visiting the Cerrablo Museum which closed its doors at 3:00 PM.  We walked over to see an Egyptian temple donated to Spain by Egypt in 1968 as an epression of thanks for aid given during the relocation of Abu Simbel at the time of the buiding of the Aswan Dam -- but it, too, was closed for the daily siesta break!

We went back to our hotel for another nap as compensation...

Around seven in the evening we ventured out again and wandered through the Old Town area, visiting Puetra del Sol and Plaza Mayor and lots of the side streets in-between.  We had a light dinner (Jamon sandwitches, a cured ham Maridian speciality) sitting outside on Plaza Mayor as day turned to night, recalling in our conversation all the architectural decoration and detail we'd encountered on our stroll.

Not bad for two old folks still suffering jet lag!       

OFF WE GO, HUNGRY OR NOT!

Having spent much of the past several weeks emptying the refrigerator, Heidi and Lee find they have nearly eaten themselves entirely out of house and home.  And so, we're off to Spain ...  hungry for the experiences ahead.

EVEN MORE ADJUSTMENTS TO COME

As we near our departure date, Heidi and Lee contemplate some added travel adjustments yet to come.  Past tours with Oversseas Adventure Travel (OAT), for example, always have been with small groups, between seven and fifteen individuals in our case, while this Grand Circle Tour will max out at forty.  Likewise, our travels in Spain will be in the company of thirteen couples and four single men while  OAT draws more single female participants and other combinations (friends, mother-daughter, sisters).

Another adjustment revolves around the amount of "free time" incorporated in the itinerary.  When touring Myanmar, India, Egypt or Turkey, while some meals were "on your own", even then our travel leaders almost always recommended or, more likely, decided for us where we would dine - we simply paid for our own meals and ordered off the menu.  Seldom was any other kind of "free time" included.

In Spain, however, we will have plenty of opportunities to explore and dine on our own.  That means, of course, that some pre-planning is involved if one is to make the best use of those unscheduled times.  Fortunately TripAdvisor and Google Maps and other online resources have helped ease the planning process; looking into the posssibilities also allowed us a more personalized visit and encouraged our investment in the entire trip long before we embarked.

When we were considering where, with whom and how to plan this particular trip, Lee looked into the posssibility of simply doing the entire tour on our own.  Realizing quickly that this would involve putting together an itinerary, scheduling how many days to spend in each location, booking flights and hotels, mastering innercity and intracity transportation options, transferring luggage from place to place, deciding what sites to visit, renting audio guides or reading guide book descriptions everywhere we went, learning tipping cutoms, and at times wrestling with non-English speakers to accomplish some essential task, he opted instead (and with relief) to make the needed adjustments and book the Grand Circle alternative!

There are, indeed, it would seem, advantages to group travel, even when the group might be larger than one prefers.  We'll see soon enough if the Grand Circle option fits our travel style.  We suspect (and hope) it will!

MORE ADJUSTMENTS

Keeping up with technology demands a good deal of effort.  Yesterday Heidi and Lee spent quite a bit of the day doing just that.  Heidi had somehow lost her texting abilities on both iPhone and iPad and was troubled about her inability to "swipe up" on her phone.  Off to the Genius Bar at the Apple Store.

Problems solved!  Lee had recently changed his iTunes email address but hadn't known he needed to alter it all over the Apple universe.  Once those changes were made, Heidi once again could text at will.  Turned out her iPhone case was not really designed for her iteration, either; a new case (larger side holes and an open faceplate) allowed her to easily gain access to the flashlight app (and to maintain a firmer grip as well on the phone itself).

Meanwhile Lee wrestled with regaining sufficient space for new images on his iPad, his SanDisk Media Disk and the SD disk from his camera, all of which were filled to overflowing with (often) multiple versions of the same exact picture.  His iPod Shuffle also chose this particular time to give up the ghost and stop providing "music to exercise (or travel) by".

Persistence and patience paid off in the end.  Late last night he managed to complete the transfer (and culling) of all the images from this past summer's events AND to upload nearly 500 songs to Heidi's (no longer used) iPod Nano.  Interestingly, he inherited Heidi's Nano the day after Apple essentially declared the whole iPod series "dead"  -- most listeners now rely on streaming everything from the Cloud or their iPhone instead.

Other adjustments: no need to drag a laptop around Europe; Lee will make due with his iPad and a wireless keyboard.  No need to pick up Travelers' Checks or withdraw lots of dollars from our local bank branch.  Our cash card can access Euros at ubiquitous Spanish ATMs easily enough instead.  No need to check paper maps to scout out sites we hope to visit; Google Maps will provide step-by-step walking directions and travel times whenever asked.  Even mastering key Spanish words and phrases is made easier via language apps and translation services.  We even have found several restaurant review and travel guides, dutifully downloaded to iPhone and iPad -- along with books, music and videos to keep us entertained when boredom threatens.

Travel made easy, indeed -- at least once all the bugs and glitches have been overcome! 

ADJUSTMENTS NEEDED

As usual, Lee has been busily browsing the 'Net seeking out various ways to embed images into these blog postings.  Also not surprisingly, the available options have proliferated.  The PhotoSnack online version seems best.  Here's a sample:

You might have to wait awhile for the full set of images to appear.  On the iPad, you can sweep from right to left from image to image once everything has been downloaded; the arrow on the right, however, doesn't seem to work - perhaps once the post is farther down the page, it will.  Obviously, more in-blog testing is required ...