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Published: August 31st 2014
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We are now in Madrid, centre of Royal and Catholic Spain with its magnificent palaces and plazas, baroque architecture and wonderful art galleries. Unfortunately neither the Palacio Real, where we began our Madrid tour yesterday, nor the Museo del Prado which we visited today, allows photos so you will just have to take my word for the beauties we are seeing inside and see photos of the plazas, buildings and parks.
The Palacio Real and Madrid Cathedral sit on either side of a vast arched courtyard. Inside the Palacio is room after room of sumptuous decoration, each individual in style and colour and including marble mosaic floors, fresco ceilings (several by Tiepolo), detailed velvet wallpapers and matching upholstery, gold and marble inlaid tables and some 250 ornate clocks, not to mention painting and sculpture. One room has five ornate Stradivarius string instruments, others collections of silver or porcelain. The dining room seats 130 for a sit-down banquet with an adjacent room for the chamber orchestra (as you do). I particularly liked the Chinoiserie room and also a small yellow bedroom. The Spanish royal family no longer lives there although the palace is still used for ceremonies.
We also saw
the lovely Plaza Mayor yesterday, Madrid's main plaza with striking modern murals blending beautifully into the traditional ochre apartments that line the square. Madrid has great plaza life. Last night we walked around another plaza, Puerta del Sol, which was packed with MadridleƱos, living statues, a Houdini-type wrapped in chains, club girls gathering custom and even an evangelist band. (I enjoyed ripping up the pamphlet they handed me, thinking 'You didn't get rid of Jews 500 years ago and you are not going to do it now'.)
Today we went to the iconic Museo Del Prado. Many of its Italian masterpieces are ironically in Melbourne but the museum is still packed with Old Masters. You would neeed months to see it all. We decided to concentrated on the Spaniards first and our favourites included Velasquez's
Las MeniƱas (of course) and his
Vulcan at the forge and
The Spinners. Goya's
Majas are fantastic as are his history paintings, especially
3 May, which I have often seen reproduced but never seen the strong symbolism which struck me as soon as I saw the original
. We also enjoyed some of the lavish baroque Rubens including
The 3 Graces, Diana and Callisto and
Adoration of the Magi. There was a special exhibition exploring El Greco's influence on modernists, which included both a big range of El Grecos and works on loan by Picasso, Cezanne, Manet, Bacon and others. I'm not a huge fan of El Greco but it was fascinating to see the varied ways modern artists had parsed or translated his creative initiatives. Seeing Cezanne's
Bathers from Musee d'Orsay was an unexpected bonus.
Not all the Italian masters are in Melbourne. There were about half a dozen beautiful Raphaels including La Perla, so called because Felippe IV considered it the pearl of his collection. I think the one currently visiting Melbourne is my favourite Prado Rapahel though.
Our hotel is very near The Prado so we had two sessions at the gallery with a siesta in between - a great idea! When we were finally exhausted we went to the beautiful Jardin de Buen Retiro, Madrid's Central Park and joined the Sunday afternoon crowds walking around the lake and down the beautiful tree-lined paths, listening to chamber music and flamenco buskers and seeing the manicured parterre.
Exhausted now, but delighted!
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Zoe London
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Sounds superb
I trust you are getting much inspiration for future interior decorating plans. And why stop at interior decorating - a dining for 130 PLUS a chamber orchestra seems like a great idea!