Encounter with Policemen with Machine Guns

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We have some time to kill before our guided tour of the Prado Museum this afternoon. Issy says that she wants to visit the Botanical Gardens, which are very close to the Prado, so we wander slowly through the streets in that general direction.

A man approaches Issy and insists that she takes a small sheet of paper that he offers her. Issy says that we should always take things that people offer us, otherwise they'll think that we're rude. She tries to read what's on the piece of paper, but it's all in Spanish. I tell her that I think it's offering her the services of a man from Africa to help her with her love troubles. I wonder why the man was so insistent that she take it. I hope he doesn't know something that I don't?

We wander on some more. Issy starts to lag behind. I think she's taking pictures, and she then catches up to me looking very excited. I hope that this doesn't have anything to do with the man from Africa. She shows me a picture of a building with a sign on it, which she says she's fairly sure says that it's the Maltese Embassy. I don't think she thought that Malta was big enough to have an embassy. The building is very small and traditional, and is in stark contrast to the American embassy, which we drove past in the bus yesterday. This was a monstrous six storey concrete fortress, with zero architectural merit, and completely out of keeping with anything around it. It looked like it had been designed with the sole purpose of resisting a truck full of explosives being driven into it. I don't think that the Maltese embassy would survive a truck full of explosives being driven into it.

We wander on some more and we take more pictures. Issy seems to be trying to kiss a big flower bush, and the next time I spot her she looks like she's trying to kiss the trunk of a tree. I start to think again about the man from Africa. When I get closer she tells me that she's discovered a macro function on her new camera and is actually trying to take some extreme close ups. I'm very relieved.

Issy heads for the entrance to the Botanical Gardens. I suggest to her that first we stop outside the Caixa Forum art gallery which we've read is particularly notable for the vertical garden on one of its outside walls. It is indeed spectacular and looks like it's about five storeys high.

We've noticed that there seems to be a very strong police presence in Madrid. We've passed the same police van three times today parked in amongst trees and fountains near some pedestrian lights. There are always three policemen standing next to it, and they all have machine guns. We wonder whether it's here to deter people from jay walking. If so it's very effective. We're very careful not to jay walk.

We stand in the queue to go into Botanical Gardens, but Issy says that she doesn't think we've got time to see these properly before we need to be at the Prado, so we decide to come back later.

We meet our guide outside the Prado. We've booked a one and a half hour highlights tour, in English, with a "live" guide, but half of our party seems to be Spanish. I hope that they speak English as well, otherwise they're not going to understand too much of the commentary. The guide gives us some head sets so that we can hear what she's saying and then explains that she'll be doing commentaries in both English and Spanish. This is a bit disappointing. It seems that we'll be only getting forty five minutes of English commentary instead of the hour and a half that we thought we'd bought. The first stop is some rooms full of El Greco paintings in their very distinctive style. The sound quality on the head sets is not very good, and we're both struggling to hear anything that the guide is saying, in either English or Spanish. Issy asks for a replacement head set. She says that she can now hear slightly better, but only slightly. I'm still struggling to hear enough to understand anything at all, and the guide has now run out of spare head sets. She's not particularly sympathetic to our plight, and seems to be more interested in getting the tour over and done with as quickly as possible than making it enjoyable for her guests. She moves through the gallery so quickly that we don't even have enough time to read the signs next to the paintings. The art works all look wonderful, but the frustration of not being able to hear is making us more inclined to want to inflict violence on whoever made the headsets than to appreciate the exhibits.

The next section is full of paintings by someone I haven't heard of called Velazquez. I ask Issy if she's heard of him, and she gives me the look. I think he might be quite famous. I also think that I might need to brush up on my Spanish art history.

We move onto rooms full of paintings by Goya. I see a couple that I recognise - The Nude Maja, and The Clothed Maja. I thought that Maja was the model's name, but apparently a Maja is a person from the lower classes of Spanish society. The paintings were apparently commissioned by the then Prime Minister, Manuel de Godoy, and he had them hung in a private room in his house, out of sight. He wasn't a very good or successful prime minister, and was removed from power in 1808. The Nude Maja was then seized by the Spanish Inquisition, and Godoy was charged with owning an obscene art work. Goya apparently didn't like the Spanish Royal Family, but was still commissioned to paint their portraits. We see one that he's signed with a mirror image of his signature, which is apparently supposed to symbolise him turning his back on the portrait's subject. This seems like quite a brave move. I wonder if they invited him back to do any more portraits.

We finish the tour and leave. The art was wonderful, but the experience was soured by the issues with the guide and the headsets. Sooner or later I'll get an email asking me to review this tour. I don't usually review tours, but I think I might review this one. It won't be pretty.

Issy says we should go back to the Botanical Gardens, which will be our third attempt to visit them today. She then decides that she's too tired and that we should walk back to the apartment instead. I don't think we're destined to ever visit the Botanical Gardens.

We wander the neighbourhood looking for somewhere to have dinner and end up back in the square near the apartment. The menu is only in Spanish, so we order pizzas, mostly because we understand more of what will be on the pizzas than what might be in any of the other items on the menu. The pizzas are very cheesy, and I think I can feel a restless night coming on. I hope I don't have a nightmare and bump my head on the ceiling, which is only a few inches above our bed.

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