Madrid one more time 11

MORE freebies? Of course! You can never have your fill of freebies, so take my tip and make the trip to Madrid's finest art gallery in the evening when it's free. That's right, the Prado is free after 6pm, giving you a couple hours to look around one of the world's best art collections. You'll save yourself €12 and have plenty of time for the highlights.

I took a couple of university courses in art history so I can tell my Vermeers from my Van Goghs, but I don't agree with people who say 'you'll need at least a half day to see a gallery properly.' Doing what exactly? It's not like you can take rubbings. A painting either speaks to me or it doesn't.

This particular one says 'hold me, thrill me'!

As much of southern European art consists of interchangeable fat babies and various pious virgins, it all starts to blur after awhile. While the Prado is large and comprehensive, it's not completely unmanageable and you can trot through in a couple hours.

Be warned though every single other tourist in town will have the exact same idea and when you show up a few minutes before 6pm you may find thousands of people queuing up literally around the block. Don't worry, once the doors are flung open the line moves quickly, with attendants dishing out free tickets as fast as they can.

I admit the paintings by Bosch and Brueghel do demand a lot of your attention, so it was good to have a brief spell to admire them again. Although we also revisited our favourites by the likes of Cranach and Velazquez, we had time to see some paintings which we'd not spotted before, mainly 19thC Spanish canvasses. Some of these were immense, with an easily-followed narrative.

For instance, in one a Jewish leader approaches the king and queen, offering to give them money towards their military campaign to fight off the Moors, but only in exchange for being allowed to stay (both the Moors and the Jews were being expelled from Spain at the time). With a dramatic flourish, a priest witnessing the scene intervenes and throws down his jewel-encrusted, solid-gold crucifix. Seemingly without any irony, he appears to warn the royal couple that they risk selling Christ to the highest bidder.

I believe the priest depicted is the Inquisitor himself, Torquemada.

This painting is also from the same period and gives you an idea of the story-telling quality I mentioned.

The title And They Still Say Fish Is Expensive explains everything. What's hard to convey is the massive scale; this one for instance is about 5 feet high and the figures seem almost life-size. By this time of evening we had massive appetites, so we headed around the corner to a tapas place I'd heard about. To hear more about what turned out to be our favourite tapas hotspot in town, click back again soon!