Madrid Part 2

We’ve had a busy couple of tourist days in Madrid and the surrounding area.

Yesterday, we spent a few hours at the Prado Museum, Spain’s national art museum. The museum boasts a substantial collection of paintings by Francisco de Goya, as well as other artists from Spain and elsewhere in Europe.

I want to know what happened to Goya in midlife. Above is a painting from early in his career. In fact, many of the paintings we saw from this period were actually cartoons he painted for tapestries that now hang in the royal quarters at El Escorial. It was fun to see the tapestries when we visited El Escorial today.

Later in his career, however, Goya’s paintings took on a much darker tone as he became disillusioned with political and social developments in Spain. The painting above represents one of these “pinturas negras.”

I found other paintings I quite like, as well, including the above landscape by Carlos de Haes.

Today, we took the train about an hour out of Madrid to El Escorial to tour the largest Renaissance building in the world. El Escorial has served as both a monastery and a royal palace, as well as a university, library, museum, and school.

We started in the basilica, arriving just in time to hear the organist play a couple of songs in practice for tomorrow’s organ recital.

Like the Madrid Palace, the monastery includes several stunning ceiling murals.

The cloister is covered in murals, as well.

Down below lie the remains of dozens of royal family members dating back 600 years. In fact, all the Spanish kings since Charles V in the 16th century, along with their wives, are buried in a special Crypt of Kings containing 26 marble sarcophagi (not pictured because they don’t allow cameras, but it’s impressive). However, the corpses need to spend at least 20 years in a super secret “royal rotting room” until they are reduced in size enough to fit in their marble boxes.

Moving on…

Remember those Francisco de Goya paintings from the Prado Museum, the ones he painted as cartoons for tapestries? Well, we saw a few of the corresponding tapestries, like the boys picking fruit above.

Finally, we walked through the beautiful monastery library.

The library holds thousands of books, including this one from the 16th century and many that are much older than that.

Gorgeous early autumn day for our train ride back into the city.

Grabbed Brad’s suitcase from the airport. (Long story. Suffice it to say that future international travel will not involve checked baggage unless absolutely necessary.) Then arrived back at our apartment in time to watch the Sen Senra concert from our balcony.

More concerts in the plaza scheduled for Friday and Saturday as part of the Hispanidad festivities.