Adventures in Spain

The Prado Museum & Royal Palace
May 19, 2005

Here's another view out our window looking toward a government building and before that was Franco's headquarters (where he was apparently fond of throwing people out the window) and before that it was a nice (presumably) gentle post office.

After breakfast we headed off to the Prado museum.  While we had to leave our packs at the entrance, they allowed us to keep the camera (as long as we didn't use the flash).

The very first thing we ran across was a man copying (quite well) a painting.

There were several other people spread throughout the museum, copying paintings but this gentleman was easily the best we saw that day.

We won't include all the photos but if you're in Madrid you should definitely made it through the Prado.

It only takes a few hours and if you're lucky they'll have an exhibit such as the one on Albrecht Durer (where we unfortunately couldn't take photographs).  The artwork in that exhibit was stunning, the level of detail in his work is just incredible.  We did find a few pictures on the web so here they are.  Note that they don't do the originals justice and if a Durer exhibit comes to town, go see it.

One of our favorites was his rabbit.  The full size version really looks as though one could reach out and pet the rabbit.  It seems as though every hair has been painted.

Once out of the museum we headed off toward the royal palace, stopping of course, to take a picture of an interesting building.

Unfortunately the main palace was closed because there was some kind of formal event.  We were able to go through a smaller exhibit though.  And pet a cat.

The royal cat.  The expression on his face clearly shows that we should stop messing with the camera and get back to the important business of petting him.  We did.  And then we went into the palace.

After touring the exhibit Michael took a break on a cool stone bench.

After leaving the palace we headed up the lane toward an interesting church but were derailed by the site of a woman with a daguerreotype camera in the shade.  We decided to get out picture taken and she put a had on Susan and we posed our little selves.  It was quite interesting to watch her snap the first picture, reach her right hand into the camera and fiddle with the film, swishing it around in the developer and the take it out and rinse it out in some water.  She took the negative and strapped it to a board and proceeded to take another shot to make a positive.  The final picture is shown below with a bit of tone added to effect (the original is b&w).

With Susan translating, Michael showed her a few holograms in the sun.

A bit farther along we found a hedge maze with warnings at the entrance telling people to be careful about muggings.  We didn't go in.

On the other hand, we did go into another park that had a statue and fountain dedicated to Cervantes with statues of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza.

 

And once arriving back at our hotel we rested a bit and followed by by dinner at a cafe just up the lane.  This was also the first place we found an unsecured wifi connection.  Yeah!

 

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Last updated: 06/19/2006
All text and images Copyright © 2006, Michael & Susan Harrison.  All rights reserved.  No use without authorization.