The Bahblog

We finished up our last morning in Cape Town with a waterfront run and breakfast at Jason Bakery. We spent the next 17.5 hours in transit to Madrid (we had a long layover in Johannesburg), but I'm happy to report that the time in transit was mostly uneventful.

We landed in Madrid early on Friday morning (5:45 am), collected our bags, and took the bus to downtown Madrid. It was still dark when we landed and our jet-lagged bodies were quite confused.

We grabbed espresso and jamon sandwiches at a nearby cafe while we waited until we could drop the bags at the AirBnB.

We showed up at the AirBnB at 9 thinking we could drop our bags but not check-in until 3, but they were all ready for us to check-in (a wonderful surprise). Even though we had just consumed espresso, we both napped until around noon.

Now refreshed, we set off to explore Madrid and eat lunch.

We had a tapas lunch (little peppers, jamon, and bread) and did a Rick Steves audio walking tour. It was a nice 1.5 hour walk through the streets of Madrid and served as the perfect introduction to our time here. We saw most of the main sights and even stopped for a glass of wine at San Miguel Market, and churros at Chocolateria San Gines. Below are some Nate's favorite photos from the tour.

We returned to the AirBnB after the walk and hung out until we reached a socially acceptable time to eat dinner. I will happily go to bed at 9:15 every night and get up at 5:15 every morning (Nate is much more of a night owl), but we're trying to adapt a more Spanish schedule while we're here. We went to a nice local restaurant for a tapas dinner and briefly strolled around the neighborhood before retiring to the AirBnB for the night.

Saturday started with a nice breakfast at the AirBnB and then a stroll to the Prado. The streets of Madrid were fairly empty at 10am (this is a city of night owls). The Prado was fantastic! - though we couldn't take any photos in the museum.

We studied the detail in The Garden of Earthly Delights (Bosch), took in all of Raphael's subjects, and spent quite a bit of time staring at Maids of Honor (Velazquez). The detail in this painting is exquisite. We pondered the lives of royalty portrayed by both Titian and Goya (among many others) and took in the drama painted by Rubens. We ended with a tour through Goya's dark paintings (I still can't believe some of these paintings were in his dining room) followed by his last pieces, which incorporated more color but are still dark compared to his early work. Seeing the transformation of Goya's work throughout his painting career was one of my favorite parts of the museum.

Post-Prado, we got lunch at a nearby Galician restaurant. We split two plates - grilled veal and marinated chicken in gravy. Both were served with fries and were absolutely wonderful. The restaurant was small, the menu was handwritten, the waitress spoke no English, and it was a perfect combination.

Now energized, we went to the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum. The Thyssen does a wonderful job walking you through hundreds of years of art. We started on the top level, with Italian depictions of the Virgin Mary and Christ and worked our way through more portraits of royalty, some El Grecos, and a couple breathtaking paintings by Canaletto.

The next level had a wonderful collection of Dutch paintings from the 1500s and 1600s. While the Italians were painting the Virgin Mary and Christ (for the millionth time), the Dutch were painting portraits of everyday scenes. It was fascinating to study these paintings and imagine life during this time.

The Thyssen also has a wonderful collection of Impressionist pieces, which Nate and I both love. We spent quite a bit of time studying the paintings from both a couple inches away (basically as close as you can get before setting off the alarm) and a couple feet away. It's truly fascinating to watch the paintings take a different form as you move away.

We finished our tour of the Prado on the bottom level with the large Picasso exhibit and a few modern art pieces (the Reina Sofia houses most of Madrid's modern art).

After the Thyssen, we went for a brief stroll through Parque de El Retiro before returning to our AirBnB.

We will be doing a tapas crawl tonight. Spanish has come back fairly quickly to Nate and he has served as my expert translator. My high school Spanish is coming back very slooooowly, but I'm understanding more and more. Nate is happy as can be to be back in Spain and I think both of our families are relieved that we are now 5,000 miles closer.