On Saturday, we did mostly tourist-y things, like seeing the Museo Reina Sofía, Museo del Prado, Palacio Real, and the Plaza Mayor. I'd never been to the Prado before, but I really enjoyed it. There are lots of very famous works from Velázquez, El Greco, Titian, Raphael, and Goya there, including Velázquez' Las Meninas (one of the eeriest paintings I've ever seen). In the museum analogy, Prado is to the Louvre as Reina Sofía is to the Musée D'Orsay. The Reina Sofía has more 20th century art, including several Dalí works, along with one of the most impressive works of art I've ever seen, Picasso's Guernica.
Then, we went to the Palacio Real (Royal Palace) and took a tour. The place is really beautiful, and sits on top of a hill overlooking the Spanish countryside. Here's a picture of the courtyard of the palace...
And the archways around the Palace...
Madrid is a really beautiful city, so this sort of grandiose design is found all over the place.
Here's a nice street corner picture...
We finally made our way to the Plaza Mayor. Most Spanish cities have a public square called the Plaza Mayor, and Madrid's is very nice.
Navigating the city was a breeze, thanks to (in my opinion) the best metro system in Europe. It looks more like a Swedish hospital than public transit. You could probably eat off of the floor in most of those metro stops and not be too much worse for wear. It's true, the Paris metro does have more rustic charm, but I'll take Swedish hospital over "rustic" in my public transportation any day.
On Sunday, we went to El Rastro, a huge open air artisan/flea market. I did pretty well, I found a nice 10 euro pair of silver earrings and a new scarf (2 euros), and some vintage prints of the city (6 prints for 3 euros).
All in all it was an excellent trip, and I'm really looking forward to more weekend travel as the program progresses (look forward to: Amsterdam, Milan, and Dubai posts, among others)
à bientôt!
-Laura
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