We ended up in Madrid for a short stopover from Paris to New York. The bad weather in Europe forced us to travel via Madrid. We arrived at about 11 PM to a beautiful evening. Our hotel was lit up beautiful around a fountain, the Palace Hotel.
One must really love to travel to be in our business. And we do. We love exploring. We took this stop as an opportunity to explore a new city. Neither of us had been to Madrid before, but we only had until 2 PM to explore. We decided to head across the street from our hotel to the Prado Museo. We saw many 16th, 17th, and 18th century works by Goya, Velecruz and many other masterpieces. It was a great overview and study on how art evolves over time from a religious focus to a focus on royalty and their families. The collection was quite vast and it was wonderful visiting off season when the crowds are much less.
I was intrigued with the eyes in all the 15th-16th century paintings that seem to be staring at you.
Portrait of a Man, Diego Velázquez
The museum seemed to have a lot going on, including a group of students from China who located themselves throughout the museum. It appeared that they were practicing painting canvases and studying the important European artists.
We had time to visit one of our favorite Spanish interior suppliers, a company called Becara that has stores in Spain. http://www.becaramadrid.com/
Becara
Becara, Madrid
Finally, we made it to our flight on Iberia Airlines back to New York. How appropriate, after our morning at the Prado, that we flew home on a plane on a famous Spanish artist, Salvador Dali.
We love the adventure of travel but it is always nice to come home.