Day two in Madrid was one of the most memorable. We woke up early-ish, grabbed a cafe con leche (a now favorite for us) and croissant, then headed to the Sofia museum to get there when they opened the doors. Luckily, once they opened, we were able to hop like Spanish bunnies to the second floor where Picasso's "Guernica" hangs before the mob of field-tripping school children reached it. We got to enjoy it all to ourselves, and it was amazing. It's huge, involved and complicated, and really astounding. There were loads of sketches Picasso did of smaller "scenes" within the painting that were really interesting. After we loaded up on Picasso, we enjoyed lots of Dali, Miro, and other more contemporary artists' works as well.
After a couple of hours, we asked about the Andrew Goldsworthy exhibit that Trevor was interested in seeing, and the information booth lady pointed out the exhibit's location on a Madrid city map; it was closer to the Prado museum in a public park. We decided to head over there, even though by the time we left it was drizzling a bit outside.
After wandering through Madrid's Botanical Gardens (which would have been a lot nicer had we gone on a nicer day--and a day not in December...) and finally finding the public garden where the Goldsworthy exhibit lived, and then wandering through the garden, we eventually came upon the Crystal Palace, a beautiful Victorian-looking glass-panelled building where Goldsworthy had built his art on-site. Even though we were wet, cold, and tired, it was absolutely worth it. The exhibit filled the Crystal Palace and was made up of a large cone made out of logs, and three inter-connected domes made out of logs as well. There were little birds flitting around the domes, and because it was such a rainy day, we were the only guests there, which meant we had the place to ourselves. It was really pleasant--the rain fell and the water slid down the glass panels as we wandered through this log dome. By the time we finally left, there was a group of people coming in.
We left the public garden and made our way towards the Metro station a few blocks away. On our way we came upon a walkway lined with these book stalls--probably thirty of them. Only a handful were open because of the weather, but it's definitely a spot we'll visit when we go back!
Before we left for dinner that night, Trevor took my picture in the fabulous elevator in our hotel. It's nearly identical in look and feel as the elevator in the Grant/Hepburn movie, "Charade," which for me was very exciting. It felt like we could have encountered a ring of espionage at any moment. Or not...
On our way to dinner we walked through the Plaza Mayor, and there were these terrific leaves hanging all throughout the plaza. The stands were in the midst of opening up for the night's business, and the majority were selling what looked to us like Halloween stuff: paper hats, rubber masks, feather boas, etc. We're not sure why that was the theme, but it was fun to look at. We ate dinner that night at a vegetarian restaurant, and on our way home, we stopped again at Matador bar. We squeezed into a table in the back of the bar, got fed munchies again, and had a terrific time. We'd like to take the Matador with us when we leave.
