Madrid Museum Crawl

I don't travel to relax, since I do so much of that at home. I don't travel for daring adventure, as I've already had my share and want no more of it. I don't travel to party and cavort -- me? But I do often travel for art: art in museums, art in public spaces, interesting architecture, grand urban design, and all the other sorts of distinctive expressions that identify cultures and places.

The most famous museum in Madrid is, of course, the Prado. Like the Louvre and the Met, it is intimidating. To make it more accessible, take advantage of the daily free hours, from 6 to 7.30 each evening. There's always a line but it moves very quickly and you're in the museum within five minutes. Pick an area ahead of time, say, Italian Renaissance, and spend your time leisurely enjoying the art. Go back the next day and repeat with a different area. And the next day again. What started out as a way to save money by getting in free turned into the best way to enjoy the museum, a few hours at a time over several days.

I like the Prado but the vast displays of Velázquez and Goya are overwhelming. The next museum we visited was much more to my taste, the Thyssen-Bornemisza, displayed in a restored palace near the Prado. Spain acquired the entire collection in 1993 for $350 million although now it's valued at up to $2 billion. And it has such wonderful stuff! There's a Piero della Francesca portrait, Carvaggio's portrait of St. Catherine, Carpaccio's portrait of a young knight, some of the best Canalettos we've ever seen, and Van Gogh's Les Vessenots en Auvers.

After a long day at the Thyssen-Bornemisza, we made it to the third of the "Golden Triangle," the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía. The collection here is modern, not as much to our taste, but stunning nonetheless. The centerpiece is Picasso's Guernica. Everyone has seen this painting in books and posters, but the huge original is much more raw and powerful than any reproduction.

Saturday was cold, wet, and grey, a great day for museum crawling. After hours upon hours of wandering through museum galleries, we stumbled back to our hotel room for a short break. It was time to think about dinner. Restaurants here don't open until late, so around 9.00 we went out to El Caldero for a huge and too satisfying meal of fried eggplant and paella, washed down with sangría de cava.