Monday, April 1, 2002 13:47
Weather: Perfect!
Location: Interpublic Communication Services (web café), Carrera de San Jeronimo, Madrid

The sound track here is Madonna, currently playing ¨Like a Virgin¨. Travel´s a funny thing...

Yesterday we got up quite late. We´d planned on getting up at 9 after our late night the night before, but when I headed down for breakfast at 10 Paul had still not risen. I had my ¨usual¨ at La Suiza (cafe con leche, orange juice, dos ¨orreyjas¨ -- ear-shaped pastries, very tasty) and then went up to find Paul, on the point of setting out. We went out to San Jeronimo and into the web café for an hour. While I caught up on the blog Paul went for a coffee of his own.

Then we split up, arranging to meet later on. Paul headed off for a walking tour of Madrid, and I walked the short distance over to the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza. In comparison with the Prado, this museum was modern, extremely well-equipped for foreign tourists with a cheap but exceptionally well done audio tour, and had no lineups at all. In three floors the Thyssen-Bornemisza presents an extremely effective art history lesson, starting with the religious iconographs of the 14th century and working through all the major western art movements up to the 20th century. I spent a blissful afternoon working my way through it: a truly fabulous collection, and presented with sufficient context and explanation to make the important evolution of the art both accessible and entertaining. One of the best museums I´ve ever been to, in short, and a much better experience than the Prado.

In the mean time, Paul had been busy as well. He stopped at the cathedral for a quick Easter service (they were running once an hour) and also stopped in at the Teatro Real, the opera house, to get the details on the opera playing that evening. When we met up at the museum, we decided to wrap up our visit at 5pm to get to the opera for its 6pm start. On the way, we called in at La Suiza to pick up sandwiches (Paul hadn´t eaten all day, and I was starving) and at the hostal to leave a note for Patrick.

The Teatro Real was renovated recently and is gorgeous. The classically-designed hall, with three levels of balconies, is surrounded by elegant sitting rooms and (on our level, at least) a luxurious restaurant. The production was of two short operas, Babel 46 by Xavier Montsalvatge, and L´enfant et les sortilèges, by Maurice Ravel. I thought the first opera, a recent work set in a D.P. camp at the end of WWII, was merely ok, though not being able to understand the surtitles didn´t help my appreciation of the work. The french opera, though, was a fantastic production of a fantasy akin to Alice in Wonderland, with fabulous costumes for the animals and objects that come to life to torment a bad boy who´s been sent to his room until the happy reconciliation with his mother at the end.

After the opera we met Patrick back at the hostal, and headed out for dinner. He had an amusing ¨oh God I´m in Spain¨ moment as we wandered through the streets, when we came upon a poster for the bullfight next weekend. We had an excellent seafood paella in an outdoor restaurant, then barhopped through a couple of other places, winding up late in the evening.

This all rather ruined our tentative plans for an early start today. In fact, we didn´t get out of the hostal until after noon. Patrick in particular was suffering somewhat, and after a light breakfast decided that more sleep was absolutely required. He went back to bed. As Paul and I worked on our second coffees, we struck up a conversation with a couple of Australians who were sitting next to us in the café, a brother and sister, Alex and Justine, who are travelling around the world for a year following the completion of their undergraduate degrees. They´d just come from India and Egypt and were still settling into the luxury of being able to drink tap water again. We arranged to meet them for dinner in the evening, and at 1:30 set off to get a couple of errands done.

It´s a beautiful sunny day. Paul´s gone off to find a stationary store while I finish up the diary in the Internet café. Then we´re going to head down to the train station and book tomorrow´s trip to Barcelona, and Paul´s going to accompany Patrick on another walking tour of the city while I plan on having a relaxing afternoon in an outdoor café reading Stephen Fry.
posted by Tom at 7:06 AM | link |