Day 3: Pat’s day exploring in Madrid

This describes the trip we planned, the trip we excitedly anticipated, the trip we imagined. Now it is just that, a trip of our imaginations.

I had a plan. My plan for this day in Madrid was to revisit the places, the art, the things that I strongly connected with the first time we visited Madrid. I thought that I was modest in my intentions but knew that I would be demanding on my senses. I managed the list I had and in so doing realised how much I enjoyed just walking in Madrid.

As an Australian, the coincidence was not lost on me as I stood before Picasso’s painting called Guernica on Saturday 25th April 2020 in Madrid’s Museo Reina Sofía. This painting is a depiction of depravity writ large, of a Basque city bombed mercilessly during the Spanish Civil War on the 26th April 1937.

I was first introduced to this massive painting in this very room nearly twenty years ago by a group of Spanish primary school students sitting on the floor in front of Guernica. Standing behind their transfixed faces, I watched as their teacher carefully pointed out elements of the painting, providing an insight into the history of their country. Of course, I didn’t understand much of the Spanish I heard, but I did understand the importance of this cultural and political lesson. I can see it still on their faces in my memory.

Today there were no eager young faces sitting on the floor in front of me as the painting before me screamed violence, inhumanity and brutality. It is provocative and unyielding. It commanded attention and reflection and is one of my ‘favourite’ twentieth century pieces of art.

Madrid has superb museums, galleries and public spaces as all great cities do. Today I planned to visit just three museums and a rather amazing public space just down the calle from the Reina Sofía. I figured the majestic space of the tropical garden in the Atocha Railway Station would be just the ticket. The garden comprised 4,000 sq metres under an arched glass ceiling, with over 7,000 plants, ponds, fish, turtles, and fresh running water that sprayed a fine mist over the plants. Quite restorative after my Guernica visit earlier that morning.

My next destination was the El Museo National de Artes Decorativas, close to the beautiful Retiro Park, once the exclusive 17th century royal palace of King Felipe IV. I shunned a walk through the park and did not succumb to a quick (it would not be!) visit to the Prado as I passed by. My second museum visit was just near the entrance to the Prado and is a little gem. What fascinated me about it was the depiction and re-creation of ordinary lives, including a rather fantastic 18th century kitchen from a Valencian mansion. The tiled kitchen showed workers in the kitchen, baking, scrubbing, cooking, making hot chocolate, cleaning fish; all the things I’d hoped not to be doing late April 2020! There were also tiles depicting fish mongers with cats following along the street behind, ice cream sellers, cakes and buns for sale. All exquisite. There are over sixty rooms in this former 19th century palace and I found new things to see. I seemed to have the place to myself as I did the first time I visited.

After a long rest and recovery over lunch in a bistro by the lake in Retiro Park, I headed off to my last museum visit for the day.

I was getting a bit keen for a siesta but because we’d had such a late night at the Ses concert last night and hence a really late start to the day, I’d missed the siesta time and was now focussed on my second visit in two days to the National History Museum of Madrid to see their fan collection. Yes, really.

I’ve developed an interest in the history of the hand fan from seeing the exhibition here some twenty years ago. Since then I have added the Fan Musée of Paris and the Fan Museum in London, located in Greenwich. I’ve also seen an interesting collection, smallish, at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge. This fascination began here in Madrid when I explored the collection at the city museum which showed that Spanish fans during the 18th and 19th centuries amongst the middle and wealthy classes, were a version of present day swap cards or footy cards, if they are still a thing? In the main, Spanish soldiers were hand drawn onto fans and so at parties and dances, women and particularly young women, would sit and flutter their fans and seek out new heroes to like or who were popular as they swapped their fans. Of course, fans have decorative as well as practical application, but I was fascinated with their tribal nature.

So that was my Saturday in Madrid. Only a few more days here before we pick up the Renault Scenic leased car on Tuesday at their depot near the airport. I'm looking forward to a rest day, but travelling with Roger over the last 36 years (gasp), I've learnt not to count on getting a rest day!