A walk in the park

After a morning of plodding around the art museums, you can beat a retreat to the shady lanes of Parque del Retiro, Madrid's finest public park.

Laid out nearly 400 years ago as the personal countryside haven for the royal family at the time, the park became the city's property in the 1800s and Madrid has since grown all around what is often called its 'lungs'.

Tree-lined avenues cross immaculate lawns and lead visitors around a boating pond, monuments and fountains. Although green and lush, it is not a tranquil spot, especially at the central lake where stalls sell sweets, puppeteers entertain the children and women tell fortunes in return for some loose change. The broad paths attract cyclists, joggers and families pushing prams all out enjoying the fresh air.

Despite the crowds you shouldn't have a problem finding a shady spot for a picnic. Be sure to stretch your legs and seek out highlights of the park like the 'crystal palace' which houses art exhibitions. Nearby is an artifical grotto with a tunnel leading underneath a waterfall.


Art installations and book fairs often line the paths.

One of the odd features of the park is a memorial to Lucifer, said to be the only public statue dedicated to the Devil, commemorating the moment when the angel fell from heaven.

A host of demons spew water under his feet.

Nearby was a gorgeous rose garden, full of scented blossoms.

Unfortunately I'm no nature photographer, but trust me, Parque del Retiro is a magnificent spot and the most impressive gardens I've ever visited. Take a tip and make the trip!

Madrid's Big Three: Number 1 - The Prado

Madrid is one of Europe's capitals of art, with three magnificent collections within walking distance of each other which, if you are feeling energetic, could be tackled in one very long day.

We spent three leisurely days in the galleries, starting with the royal collection in the Museo del Prado. The building itself is nearly 200 years old and was gleaming in the sun on the day we approached along a lovely avenue of shade trees. All the great (and not so great) Spanish artists are named and portrayed along the flank of the exterior, with centre stage given to Velazquez, the royal court painter from the days of King Felipe IV, 400 years ago.

Once inside, we started with the classical sculpture from ancient Greece and Rome, which soon led to church paintings from the Italian Renaissance. The first truly great paintings we encountered were by Flemish and German painters with familiar names like Holbein, Durer and Cranach but also less known artists like van der Weyden.

One room is dominated by the bizarre fantasies painted by Brueghel the Elder and Hieronoymus Bosch (or 'Bosco' as the Spanish call him), including the original painting that can be found in thousands of college dorms, The Garden of Earthly Delights. Like all the photos I feature on my site, clicking the image opens a larger view.

It took some patience to work our way through the crowds in order to absorb all the details and if it hadn't been for all the jostling we could have easily spent an hour studying this and Brueghel's Triumph of Death, where an army of skeletons overwhelm a town.

Despite the fact every living person depicted is about to die, there is a grim fascination in seeing how everyone meets their doom in dozens of inventive ways. After awhile you might start rooting for the skeletons with their fixed grimaces, such as when they hold the door open to a huge coffin into which people are fleeing for safety. The only people oblivious to their doom are the canoodling lovers in the far right corner listening to music and lost in each other's eyes. We will all spend a long time looking at the lids of our coffins and perhaps the artist is suggesting that life's simple pleasures like love and music can help delay the inevitable.

The collection is skewed heavily towards Spain's own painters, such as Goya, whose often distressing paintings depict disturbing legends and disastrous war campaigns:

Saturn Devouring His Son (from the myth about the ancient giant who ate his own children because of a prophetic warning he'd be overthrown by one - his wife eventually tricked him by feeding him a boulder wrapped in a blanket and the son she saved grew up to be Jupiter, king of the gods);

The Colossus (a blind giant turns his back on the desperate civilians left in a tumult during an invasion, although some scholars now debate whether the work is that of Goya's or one of his students);
And a final example from Goya's paintings at the Prado, the Third of May 1808, when Spanish resistance against Napoleon's occupation was quashed.

We didn't find all the Spanish paintings as stirring or original. Ribera (born 1588) only churned out second-rate copies of Caravaggio (born 1571)...

Ribera's St Jerome above, Caravaggio's below

...and if you've seen one hallucinogenic Greco you've seen them all.

Black sky? Check. Contorted bodies dressed in lurid clothing, their glistening eyes turned upward? Check, check, check.

My main complaint about the dominance of Catholic theology in so much art of the time is that the same Biblical stories are repeated over and over. One Annunciation after another, followed by endless play dates between Jesus and John the Baptist, etc etc. The Prado offers some unique devotional art, such as floating martyrs...

...and saints partaking of some unorthodox sustenance.

Sticking with the theme, we also found this bearded lady nursing a baby.

And for something completely different, a travelling exhibition of pre-Raphaelite artists was on view, including Leighton's Flaming June...

...and the sacrilicious Escape of the Heretic by Millais, with a wide-eyed priest trussed up in his own rosary beads.



Pride of place at the Prado is given to Velazquez. Compared to the above highlights, his works of aristocratic frivolities appear tame.

The works are accomplished and clever, but often tame nonetheless, with nothing bizarre or grosteque intruding on royal life (aside from the court's many dwarfs).

Which makes this devotional composition all the more interesting by contrast. There is no finery or pomposity here.

Except this isn't a Biblical story, but rather a Classical tale of the god Vulcan at his forge. The haloed figure is Apollo, not Jesus. It gives some indication of the status and freedom Velazquez enjoyed as a painter in the royal court, to be able to paint non-religious subjects.

His most famous work, The Maids of Honour, is at the very centre of the museum. Velazquez himself stands in the painting, albeit in the shadows and almost unnoticeable compared to the royal children cavorting in front of him. A mirror reflects the images of the king and queen looking in at the scene, but framed in such a way they appear almost indistinguishable amongst the paintings lining the walls. A nobleman draws back a curtain and steps into the room, giving the flat canvass a remarkable sense of depth and activity.

The subject of many a dissertation, it's probably the single most-analysed work of art in the world, so I won't be adding any more to the debate. I hope you haven't minded this little detour into art history, but the galleries of Madrid contain some of the most compelling works of all time and the opportunity to see all these treasures makes for the trip of a lifetime!

So we'll take a breather and try to enjoy some flamenco before tackling the remaining two of the Big Three.

A taste of Spain - tapas in Madrid

The other day we were sat in Manchester's La Tasca, one in a chain of tapas restaurants here in England. We kept our jackets on while a cold wind from the open door whipped around our ankles. We sipped overpriced glasses of wine and waited an hour for some food. The portions were tiny (but the prices weren't), so our 50%-off voucher clipped from the newspaper came in handy. We vowed to make another visit to Madrid as soon as possible to remind ourselves how tapas are really done.

This last spring we spent 5 days in Madrid, the capital of Spain and its largest city. Madrid also lays claim to being the culinary capital of Spain, with an unrivalled selection cafes, bars, ice cream stands, bakeries and restaurants which are open past midnight.

Despite the sprawl, the core of the city is compact and surprisingly attractive, with many narrow lanes free of traffic. Standing in the crossroads Puerta del Sol, the official centre of all Spain, means all the city's major sites are within a 10-minute walk. But instead of traipsing around the Museo del Prado or the Palacio Real just yet, how about a sample of some of the city's best places to eat and drink?

We noticed two distinct divides south of Puerta del Sol. On the one side there is Plaza de Santa Ana, overlooked by ritzy hotels, its pavements packed with parasols, cafe tables and buskers. The only vistors here though are the tourists, most of them treating their euros like so much Monopoloy money, judging the way they were throwing it about.

Venturing the opposite direction and clutching our menu decoder, we made our way instead most nights towards the La Latina neighbourhood. Walking down streets that follow the route of the old city walls, we found dozens of eateries all offering reasonable prices and all packed with local residents.

Taberna Tempranillo at 38 Cava Baja was one of the first places we entered, the name catching our eye as it is one of our favourite wines. The wine did not disappoint, especially the Ribera del Duero from the Arzuaga bodega. We paid for a selection of tapas: goats cheese with grilled courgette (Quesito de Cabra), a hearty pate topped with a blackberry couli and caramelised onion (Pincho de Pate) and slabs of seared tuna (Ventresca de Bonito). Each was served on a separate saucer atop several slices of chewy bread. Four glasses of delicious wine and three tapas came to 22 euros.

We would have stayed longer, but fancied something a bit heartier. Around the corner we found Viva La Vida, an organic vegetarian buffet which charges by the weight of the food piled onto your plate. The website is packed with photos that give you an idea of what to expect.

We heaped our plates with hummus, falafel, couscous, rice, croquettes, pasta salad and other Mediterranean-style goodies. Along with a bottle of San Miguel lager and a glass of the house red wine it came to 28 euros.

Another evening along Cava Baja and we headed into a winebar called Lucio. I'm sure that was the name, but a Google search only mentions an exclusive restaurant on the street by that name. Perhaps this is their 'snackbar' version because there were very few diners?

The Riojas and Riberas we sampled were all suberb, the finest of the trip. I made a point of ordering only the most expensive ones off the winelist, but they were 3 euros a glass at the most (compared to £6 here in Manchester for wine of the same quality). I noticed our servings became more ample after we sipped our first glass. The free tapas that accompanied each wine become more generous as well, starting with an olive and pickle salad, followed by slices of handcarved dried porkleg on cheese biscuits, then finally a large plate of roasted almonds.

Quite often we were the only tourists in these eateries and the chances of being handed a menu in English were nil. I studied two years of Spanish at university, but I still found this comprehensive menu decoder a godsend. I took the time to copy all the entries into a short Word document which stayed in my pocket the entire trip. No deep-fried baby eels for us!

They may speak the same language, but Mexican food is quite different from what you find in Spain so it was interesting to try out the Spanish approach to TexMex at La Mordida. Inside it was a riot of colours, murals and paper hangings. The fajitas came out on a single plate to be shared between us and as these only lasted about 5 minutes we asked for the nachos which came under a pile of melted cheese, refried beans and guacamole. Throw in a couple more glasses of wine and it came to 28 euros, according to my receipt. My receipt also says it was nearly midnight before we left!

That was one of the best things about Madrid: we stopped looking at our watches and wondering about the time because so many places stay open all night. We were walking down a busy street enjoying ice creams one night at 2am and come 5am the clubbers roll into the cafes to dunk churros into cups of thick hot chocolate.

Coming up, a trip out to El Escorial...some of Europe's finest art museums...and practical tips on visiting Madrid. Vaya con Dios!