Spain Part 20 - El última día en Madrid

 All good things come to an end, so we had to make the best of it while we were still there.  We awoke, breakfasted, and headed to the Palacio Real to tour the inside. (The Palace was built by the Bourbon line, the French royals that drove the Muslims out of Spain.  The French do have a few military victories, who knew?) 

This was actually my favorite day, because the Palacio Real was incredible.  Spanish architecture is traditionally “catholic” according to our tour guide, which means that it’s unimpressive on the outside and incredibly impressive on the inside.  I didn’t really understand what they meant by that at first because everything I saw looked pretty darn impressive, you know, detailed sculpture covering every inch of the outside of a 10 story pure white stone palace.  Once I went inside, I got the picture however.

As impressive as the outside is, the inside certainly did put it to shame.  Not only was there a mural on every ceiling (most of them religiously oriented but there were a few sky and/or nature oriented) but the moldings were all hand carved, either painted gold or made of mahogany.  Where there was original carpet it was woven and colorful, usually deep blues, purples, greens, and reds with off-white trimming.  There were curtains on every window to block the sunlight to keep it from fading the paintings, wallpaper, carpet etc. and the lights inside were dim as well.  The rooms we saw were a dining hall, the rooms that the king used as a bedroom and a dressing room (the dressing room was bigger than my own bedroom) and a small hallway that was so lavishly decorated it was hard to believe that they didn’t use it for anything more than passing through. 

All of this sounds incredible of course, but what could possibly have been on display in the music room to make this the best part of my trip?

Stradivarius instruments, five of them, one cello and four violins.

I was so happy, you have no idea.  These are original beautiful instruments that have been played by amazing musicians and were there for me to see.  It was inspirational, and incredibly encouraging to not only know that these exist, but to see them up close with my own eyes, to look inside the cello and see the name “Antonio Stradivari” written on the label.  What I wouldn’t give to hear one of those instruments played. 

We left the palace and headed straight to el Museo Reina Sofía where most of Picassos works are, and where Guernica was being displayed.  We got there an hour before it was supposed to close, but we still made it around to most of Picasso’s 4 floor exhibit.  It was really interesting to see how much work he put into Guernica, there were rooms full of his drafts.  It would be so cool to see the world the way that Picasso painted it.

Outside the museum there were a whole bunch of street vendors selling jewelry, fans, paintings, and other such things.  Amanda bought a poster of a Flamenco dancer, and the vendor stamped her name across the bottom so that the poster announces that Amanda Prince will be performing the dance.  There was a jewelry vendor from South America who we kept running into outside the museo as well (he had been set up in the street where our hostel is Friday night).  Half of our group had bought jewelry from him, he made really unique pieces with precious stones and twisted wire and metal.  I asked him if he had one piece with a different color stone, and he proceeded to remove the stone with his tools, took out a bag of the same size stones and asked me which one I preferred.  I picked and it took him about two more minutes to finish putting the stone back into the jewelry, and it looked just as it had before.  It was fun to watch. 

We headed into the city to find a place for almuerzo and ended up at a little bar, where the owner went out and bought bottled water for us after we ordered.  He was obviously owner, chef, etc. all in one, and our adventure there lasted 3 hours because of that.  We had Spanish tortillas, which are basically omelets with lots of potato and verduras (vegetables).  Mine, called tortilla verde had champiñones (mushrooms) peas, green olives and some other green vegetables, and was delicious.

We shopped for a little bit after that, grabbed our stuff from the hostel and headed out to the bus station.  The ride home was uneventful, which is a good thing, and we made it back to Valencia.  It’s funny, but I kind of missed it while we were in Madrid, it’s definitely far less touristy.