27 March 2023 Madrid: The Prado Mueum

 

The Prado is a huge museum with acres of art.  They don't allow pictures inside the museum so I only have a few pictures that I was able to take before my scolding.  We walked down to the museum and then continued to the El Retrio Park for our picnic lunch.  We had a shrimp salad that we made the evening previous.  Then we spent a few hours in the museum dodging the larger tours.  There were entire halls devoted to the Spanish artists such ad Goya and Velazquez.  Many Dutch masters were on display as well as including Rubens, Rembrandt, the Brueghels.  One painting in particular was a collaboration, Rubens painted the portraits and Brueghels painted the landscape.  Another interesting pairing was a Adam and Eve by Titian and a copy of that same painting by Rubens.  It was great seeing.so many incredible pieces of art.  I took notes of the pieces that caught our eyes 

Tip Pepe is a guitar wielding bottle of Sherry

A new metro station has this intersection all torn up

So many flowers

It is beautiful

A Theater

Random Grafitti

An odd series of letters on a piece of concrete art

Some official buildings dealing with the courts

Franz List did something here

Neptune, god of the seas

Have umbrella, will travel

Grand Hotel indeed

We thought that this may be an entrance to the Prado Museum as the sign at the top might indicate but it was not

Picnic lunch

Shrimp salad wraps

We returned to Retrio Park for our picnic

Hail to the Queen

I am in the museum and have not been warned about photos yet

An entire hall of royal statues

I liked the dog in the foreground

A group of philosophers

This is made of polished stone

All carefully cut and inlayed 

Some of the promotional materials outside

A picture of a postcard in the gift shop

More shots from the outside posters.  I wanted some pictures...

I discovered that I could find the art on the Prado website, this is called "Abundance"

Adam and Eve by Titian

Adam and Eve by Rafael, the fig leaves are substantially smaller

"Concert of the Birds" is a funny absurdist painting

A different set of birds in another "Concert of Birds"

Hyper-realism art from the 1611 by Clara Peeters!

Painted with dignity "El Primo"

The head of a horse from a Greek Sculture

This is some good ham

A young Margaret from Austria

"The Monkey Sculptor" is funny

There was an alcove stuffed with incredible art glass

And the special cases that they were stored in

The Church on the hill above the museum

So many spires

Spring has sprung as evidenced by the lawn

Serious doors

It has been 295 days since we began our Migration

25 March 2023 Madrid: Friends From Florida and Fancy Fashion

 

Our friends from the Florida Wine Club, Catherine and Jeremy, are currently living in Luxembourg.  We saw on Facebook that they were in Madrid so we messaged and next thing you know they came over to our place for lunch.  We had a great time talking travel, both our and theirs.  We talked about working outside the USA,  the old times, wine club, book-club, bookstores, getting older, kids, wine, beer, whiskey, Luxembourg, Belgium, Spain, Scotland, USA, baseball, soccer, bagpipes, food and then more about food.  They are certainly kindred spirits and we hope to see then again whenever we are in Europe.  We met them in the plaza at 1noon and they stayed till after 5 PM.  A great time was had by all. I took the picture above immediately after they walked in the door.  Its a good thing I did as we talked nonstop and never had time to take another picture.   As we were putting the dishes away we heard what sounded like an aria.  We peeked out our window and we saw that square had been turned into some sort of performance space.  There were spectators surrounding a large rectangular area centered on the statue.  Luckily we were about to be entertained by a fusion of Opera, Equestrian Artistry and Haute Couture.  Sponsored by Cabalgando Entre Costura this event drew a big crowd down in the square but also a good crowd on balconies and watching from windows all around the plaza.  We sat on our balcony for two hours or more watching and listening.

We pointed out our apartment to Jeremy and Catherine when we picked them up

Two more dormer windows to the right is our place

The newest venue for fashion!

There were a half dozen horses throughout the performances

While the horses pranced and demonstrated fancy footwork

Models would emerge one a at time

The houses would sometimes interact with the fashion show

Mostly they two were separate

Hi ho Silver

A simple white affair

Put on the sunshades 

The Andalusian horses worked without a rider 

There was a wide range of dresses

At the end of each designers offerings the designer would walk a lap

Fancy stepping

This time the handler kept the horse on the same pace as the model

The shadows just got longer as the show continued

A classic Spanish mount

A classic Spanish hat

The heels gave some of the models a hard time

Just a guy in the crowd

The shadows are well defined despite the uneven surface

Flip that tail!

The most impractical dress of the show

Game of Thrones anyone?

Only one hoof on the ground

Fancy Shoes were also showing

A series of flamenco inspired dresses

This horse was not afraid to use its tail

The wind helped 

Time to take this yellow wrap to the cleaners

Perhaps 10% of the models were men

The jury is out on this one

Ready for a North Africa excursion

Leslie looked up and spotted this golden eagle, lifebird!

In a series of wedding dresses the rider also wore a wedding dress

This might have been the nicest dress of them all

And the wedding dress designer comes out in red!

A throw back to flapper days

These guitarists were top shelf

The latest oven mitt look

I can hear the flamenco guitars 

Many tiered 

it has been 293 days since we began our Migration