11/11/2024

 


 


 


Sunrise over the Prado

 

We arranged with the Concierge a pair of skip-the-line tickets to the Prado for the morning and so after a nice sleep in we sauntered across the street to the Prado.

 




 

Our Hotel from the Prado

 

There was a skip-the-line line and so we queued up at 9:50.  By 10, when they opened the line stretched another 100 yards.  We were in and viewing by 10:10.

 




 

The Skip-the-Line line (note St Jerome church in the background - over 1000 years old)

 

Pictures are not allowed in the Prado and so we only took one (pleading ignorance and we were not caught anyway).  The Hotel gave us a cheat sheet of the Must-See paintings and in which gallery they resided. We made a bee-line to the Hieronymus Bosch room.  Well, Paul tried to, but Shirley got distracted along the way. Soon it became clear to Paul that Shirley is driving the bus and he got in line. 

 

And that is a good thing because while the highlights are spectacular, so is EVERYTHING else! We did manage to see the Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights, Goya’s The Executioners and his two Maijas, Ruebens’ the Three Graces, and Caravaggio’s Ecco Homo.  And they were all beyond exquisite. But the star of the show were the many other masterpieces that simply spoke volumes of passion and emotion. Paul liked the dark side of Goya – one whole gallery of bizarreness. Shirley found a portrait of the Phillipa mother of Henry the Navigator (she bought a book about her in Lisbon). The Prada is now in the top three most awesome museum we have been to (Uffizi, Hermitage and now the Prada).

 

After lunch we arranged the concierge to obtain tickets to the Reina Sophia Museum, a short 15-minute walk from the Mandarin Oriental. 

 

 






 

On the way to the Reina Sophia

 

This museum was not crowded, and so we walked right in and began our tour. This museum holds many modern masterpieces – the star being Guernica by Picasso. Also, in scope were many by Dali, Miro, Gris and others too numerous to list. We took a lot of pictures for our memory (they are not here as there are better ways to view them online). However, to show the scale of Guernica, here is one:

 



 


Guernica by Picasso 

 

We toured all the galleries at the Reina Sophia and took the outside elevators down and made our way into the gift shop (yes, this is a part of the museum experience – and maybe score some cool socks or an interesting bit for the Grands).

 

We strolled back to the Hotel past the Prado, in an amazing fall day.  It was perfect weather for a walk among large trees with leaves turning color and falling. Once back in our spacious room, we relaxed until time for dinner.  Paul caught up on the blog and Shirley caught up on her heating pad.

 

At 6:15 we all met in the lobby and 3 taxis took us to Quintin, a nice restaurant near the Hotel. They had a table for 15 set up upstairs in this very quaint neighborhood.  





We dined well on pasta, veal, pizza, steak and fish.  The flan was very good – a bit more ‘cheesecaky’ than stateside, but VERY tasty. Shirley and Paul walked back to the Hotel with Tim and Patsy.  Our route of 18 minutes took us past many high end shops with eclectic window displays. Back at the Hotel (we almost beat those who taxied back) we said goodnight to all and retired.  11,880 steps today.

 

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