Tapas And More: 9/24/2015: The Prado

Last night, we had dinner on the plaza. Was an amazing scene. Locals and people from everywhere congregating at the many outdoor restaurants. We had tapas, including Spanish omelette. Very enjoyable.

Started today at a chocolataria. A traditional breakfast, late night snack and hangover meal is churros and hot chocolate. Churros are a fried bread bread that is shaped into long bows. I will try and post a picture. The chocolate milk is actually liquid fudge. You don't drink it. It is for dipping in the churro. It is not sweet. It complements the churro. Orange juice comes with it to cleanse the palette. It is totally decadent. But incredibly good. Being on sugar high of major proportions, we headed to the Madrid Botanical Gardens, near the Prado. We had a nice walk through the greenery. It is off season for colorful plants. But it was a nice respite from the city. We took a quick walk over to the Parque Respiro. It is a huge park that comes alive on Sunday. Of course, we have that on our list for Sunday's adventure. It is huge. They have a large cat population, which they feed and keep under control. We stopped, sat and watched a group for awhile. Some photos will be coming.

Then to the Museo del Prado. This is very hard to describe. It is huge. It has the most incredible collection of art that is imaginable. And nothing abstract or beyond. Our tour covered the basic trio, El Greco, Velazquez, and Goya. However, we got a preview of work from the Dutch and Italian masters. Also, a short post Goya review was presented. In between, we were shown works of artists that were in the same eras. It was interesting to see how many paintings of ancient religious events were depicted in the later art works.

The tour ended with Goya's "Black Works". It is a horrible reminder of the cruelty of war and what can happen without reason. The tour itself was amazing. We each received a hand held speaker for our ear. The guide spoke into her mike. We all heard her through our speaker. There were many tours going on at the same time. This was an efficient way to conduct these tours without disrupting
everyone in the museum.

We went back to Ramirez Guitars after the Prado. They were open. They were extremely gracious. Allowed photos of guitars. Talked to us about the family and history of the company. Gave us a recommendation for a flamenco place, which we are going to tonight! What could be better.

Still having issues with the photos for the blog. I have to download and wait overnight for the photos to be ready to be added to the post. So the photos for this post will be added in the morning. En la manana, we are going to Toledo for a day trip.

Photos are: Museo del Prado, church next to Prado, Neptune, cats at Retiro, Botanical Garden (sunflowers for our friend Kie), Becky talking to a tree, hedges, strange tree, our elevator (room for two only - fun elevator rides).