Last Friday I made the first trip away from Alicante since coming home from my
last business trip in early March. I have long wanted to make another day trip
to Madrid, alone, to visit art museums at my own pace and generally enjoy the
big city for a few hours. So that’s what I did on Friday, the first day of my
summer vacation. The logistics were simple: I took the high speed train AVE at
7 a.m., arriving in Madrid at 9:30, spent the day there, and took a 19:20 train
back to Alicante in the evening. I started by visiting the Museo Reina Sofia,
the main contemporary art museum in Madrid, which houses Picasso’s Guernica
painting (no pics of that, as there is a prohibition against photography in
that room, and there are several attendants to enforce it). I then took a walk
in the magnificent Parque de Buen Retiro, Madrid’s equivalent of New York’s
Central Park, and then went to the recently re-opened Museo del Prado to see
(again) some of my own favourites from previous visits, including the Flemish
masters, Hieronymous Bosch, the Spanish painters Veláquez, Goya, Murillo etc.
In-between I visited another cultural icon, the bar El Brillante, and had an
early lunch of their excellent version of one of Madrid’s signature sandwiches,
the bocadillo de calamares. After the Prado I walked to the centre of the city
(I walked everywhere; given the epidemic, I did not want to use Madrid’s metro
to move around as I usually do), first Puerta del Sol, heart of the shopping
district, and then Plaza Mayor, a large square containing Madrid’s old town
hall and lined by bars and restaurants that usually making a roaring trade
vastly overcharging the tourists for mediocre food. But not now. The plaza was
virtually deserted, and had I wanted a table at one of the restaurants that
were open for business (quite a few had not bothered to re-open) I would have
had ample choice. The museums were also almost empty—they are only allowed to
let in 1/3 of the usual maximum number of visitors, but do not even come close
to that. This was nice for me, not that nice for the museums.
The virus-control procedures are quite strict. It goes without saying that
facemasks are compulsory everywhere; to enter the Prado you must submit to a
temperature check and if you score 37.5C or above, you will not be admitted. I
was slightly concerned because I had just spent an hour in the Retiro park, and
the outside temperature was getting close to the afternoon high of 40C, but I
need not have worried—my temperature was 36.5. At the Atocha train station
where were gates through which passengers would pass, and the same rules
applied—anybody with a temperature of over 37.5C would not be allowed to board
the train. On the train, none of the usual services were available—the
cafeteria car was closed, no free earphones or newspapers were distributed as
is usually the case, and passengers were encouraged to stay in their seat
throughout the journey and not to talk to other passengers. Obviously masks
were worn by everyone throughout.
Enough words. Here are the photos I took, many of the art works at the Reina
Sofia, a musuem I have visited before but always together with someone else.
This was the first time I really had time to explore it, and I was really
astounded by the quality of Spanish painting in the postwar decades, when
cultural life in this country was constrained by the Franco dictatorship—but
this did not keep its artists from producing excellent work (I see some of the
same when I visit Poland and look at art from Communist times—the censors were
too stupid to catch some of the nuances of modern art; writers had it more
difficult).
So come for a Covid walk around Madrid, that looks familiar and yet very
different from the city I am used to visiting:
http://www.frozenlight.eu/madrid_july2020/
<http://www.frozenlight.eu/madrid_july2020/>
Cheers,
Nathan
Nathan Wajsman
Alicante, Spain
http://www.frozenlight.eu <http://www.frozenlight.eu/>
http:// <http://www.greatpix.eu/>www.greatpix.eu
PICTURE OF THE WEEK: http://www.fotocycle.dk/paws
<http://www.fotocycle.dk/paws>Blog: http://nathansmusings.wordpress.com/
<http://nathansmusings.wordpress.com/>
Cycling: http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/belgiangator
<http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/belgiangator>
YNWA
"I’m not arguing, I’m just explaining why I’m right"
--
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