Marvelous Madrid

 Saturday, April 11th

Surprisingly, I slept through the night without taking a sleeping pill! Of course, after 30+ hours without sleep, last night may not be a true indicator on the jet-lag app, but I'm hopeful!  We have a cloudy and warm day in the forecast.  The high altitude of the city sometimes gives it huge weather changes in a single day. Our local guide, Nico, joined us to give our tour of Madrid and the Prado Museum.  

Madrid was founded in the second half of the 9th century by Emir Muhammad I of Córdoba.  The city was made the capital of Spain in 1560, which makes it one of the youngest capitals in Europe and the only one with Islamic origins.  Today it has a downtown population of about 3 million people and the city is divided into 21 districts.

Spring flowers blooming!!

We had a short stop at La Plaza de Oriente, the grounds of the royal palace I visited yesterday. Nico told us that the last time the royal family lived in the palace was in 1931, and their family is related to British royal family.  The equestrian statue of Philip IV (Felipe) on top of the fountain in the middle of the plaza had an interesting history.  Sculptor Pietro Tacca created the tribute in 1640, but Galileo's help was required to calculate the stability of the design. "the horse rears, and the entire weight of the sculpture balances on the two rear legs—and, discreetly, its tail— a feat that had never been attempted in a figure of this scale" [source].

Museo Nacional del Prado was our last stop for the morning, and unfortunately you're not allowed to take photos inside the exhibits.  "Prado" means 'meadow' as it was originally intended to be a museum of natural sciences.  We did a very quick tour (under two hours) to highlight the "Big 3" in the museum: El Greco, Diego Velázquez, and Francisco de Goya.  The museum has over 35,000 works of art, and 8,000 paintings so I think our curated tour was perfect. To appreciate these paintings, I've shared some videos I found explaining them.

Doménikos Theotokópoulo, who is widely known as El Greco (which means "the Greek" in Spanish) had a very unique painting style - he elongated & distorted figures and painted without backgrounds. During his lifetime he was not very famous outside of Toledo. He would also paint in a different style for those who commissioned him and didn't like his preferred style.  

Diego Velázquez was born in Seville, Spain and painted during the 17th century. As a court painter for Philip IV, he painted many royal portraits and is best known for his Las Meninas (Ladies in Waiting or Maids of Honor) depicting Philip IV's family.  In addition, he often painted mythological people as real people, such as his Vulcan’s Forge painting depicting Apollo in the forge of Vulcan.  

Francisco de Goya "is regarded as one of the last of the Old Masters and one of the earliest of the modern artists." [source] Because he painted during the time of the American and French revolutions his works reflected those upheavals.  Some of his most famous works, that we saw, included The Naked Maja, The Clothed Maja, The Family of Carlos IV, and Saturn Devouring One Of His Sons.

After our free time for lunch, I joined the optional tour of El Escorial, which is located about an hour northwest of Madrid.  It is a combination monastery, royal palace, and basilica complex erected by King Philip II as a memorial to his father, Carlos V.  The complex is vast, and to not make this blog post a book, I'll keep it limited to the parts I found most interesting.

El Escorial - entrance through the Basilica

Nico was an excellent guide, and he brought us up a staircase and through a small door into the Royal library, and exclaimed "isn't it a wow!?"  He wasn't wrong! Interestingly, all the books are shelved backwards so you only see the golden pages.  The room was incredibly impressive. The sign above the other entrance to the library threatens excommunication if you steal a book!

 The Royal Pantheon of Infantes was very beautiful.  In Spain, only the heir to the Crown is a prince or princess, so they use the the title Infante de España for the children of reigning and past Spanish monarchs.  Among other privileges, the infantes have the right to be buried in the Pantheon of Infantes.  The floors and ceiling are made of white marble and there are multiple chambers.  

Pantheon of Infantes Children's Mausoleum

 The special polygonal tomb for the royal children who died before reaching puberty was unique.  The Pantheon of the Kings (Royal Pantheon) did not allow photos, although I'm really not sure why. It is located directly below the church's main alter and has beautiful black and red marble walls with green marble caskets.  The mausoleum, with the caskets of each king, in order of reign, and their wives opposite them, hold kings from the 1500's of both the Habsburg and Bourbon dynasties.  Although, since Felipe IV created the burial place, he cheated the rules and had two of his daughters buried there.

The Royal Basilica of San Lorenzo de El Escorial 

 

The father and mother of King Juan Carlos I, are awaiting interment, which is anticipated to happen within the next 5-10 years.  Once that happens the marble caskets will all be filled. No decision has yet been announced as to the final resting place of now-abdicated Juan Carlos, Queen Sofía, Felipe VI, Queen Letizia, and any future monarchs and consorts.

 We also visited the Palace of Philip II, which compared to my visit yesterday at Palacio Real, is very austere!  It's a bit shocking when you think about the size of his empire (from the Philippines to South America, the sun never set on his empire), but he was deeply catholic and only spent a few months a year there since it was a seasonal palace.