The most beautiful pictures are absurd in a concave mirror. (Ramon Valle Inclan, Bohemian Lights)

Madrid

June 23

After last night’s delightful moving feast there was no need for a break feast but we did need to keep moving or else Madrid would pass us by.

So far every trip we have made has commenced at the Callao Square across the road where there is always some sort of event happening – today it was classic cars: American (Buick) mostly.

After a few stops of shops along the way we decided it was time for a breakfast of churros and 2 cups of thick dipping chocolate at San Gines Chocolateria. The Spanish poet, Ramon Valle Inclan, is said to have been inspired by San Gines Chocolateria, but when I googled his poetry and plays, it all seemed very bleak. The churros and chocolate were not.

Suitably refreshed we recommenced our stroll through streets, shops, attempting to buy tickets for Porgy and Bess but the show was not on our last 2 nights in Spain. Until we reached the Royal Palace (with 2,800 rooms), luckily or unluckily it is also not open on our last 2 full days here, but there is always the Cathedral.

The cathedral took over 100 years to build and was only relatively recently opened. However, besides a couple of the more modern artworks there did not seem to be too much difference with the other Cathedrals we have visited – however the holy “lift” choral music gently piped thru the building was relaxing…and it was cool, as the temperature was rising, with a humid, thunderstorm type cloud pattern hovering.

We decided to head back to the other side of the city and the Museo Thyssen Bornemisza to see another collector’s donation of art.

Along the way we stopped at:

-           the shop El Jardin del Convento which is run by Carmelite Nuns to purchase a batch of their cookies (as tasted on the previous night’s food tour)

-          The San Miguel Market for a plate of olives with octopus and gherkins with tuna plus a plate of 50 grams of finely sliced Iberian ham (also tasted on the food tour) at $200.00 per kg. The pig lives free range under oak trees eating acorns until it is 160kg – then killed and cured for 2 years – we will never be able to eat another type  of ham again

-          And finally a few other shops, including a clothes shop to try out a few leather jackets – just to get an idea.

The Thyssen Museum tuned out to be so much bigger and grander than expected so we had to stop for a coffee break half way through. But suffice to say that whatever I did not see in the previous museums and galleries they were all here: Rembrandt’s self portraits, Henry V111 Holbein portrait, Raphael, Titian, Tintoretto, El Greco, Rodin, Picasso, Monet, Manet, Van Gogh, Lucien Freud, Rothko, Arshile Gorky, Matta, Ernst, Mondrian, Braque, Lichtenstein, Rauschenberg & the list goes on. But my favourite today were the 2 by Dali. Painted with the incredible detail and rock hard smooth enamel surface of an old Flemish master (i.e., Rogier van der Weyden) depicting the strangest, mysterious, anxiety ridden dreamscapes.

Home about 6:30 to collapse on our beds wordless & exhausted until we were roused by the thunderstorm with rain & relief from the heat to head up to the 9^th floor for Tea and Tortilla Patata in our Terrace Café. Where we watched the storms clouds and rain and wondered how do the Spanish get in 6 meals per day!!! Whilst reading the Spanish fashion magazines which seem to take the subject about who’s cool and who’s not with an extraordinary amount of seriousness and earnestness, that it’s got to be “tongue in cheek”.