Thyssen-Bornemisza Gallery

Glen slept most of Friday but I was awake enough to go exploring so crept out and caught the metro to the Thyssen-Bornemisza gallery. This is one of the three big art galleries in Madrid; I would have gone to Centre de Arte Reina Sofia but I didn’t want to risk Glen getting upset that he didn’t see Guernica. 

Thyssen Gallery had a Balenciaga exhibition on which juxtaposed his gowns with the paintings and artists he drew inspiration from. I took the audio guide in but it was so wordy and talked for so long at each stop that I stopped listening after four and just wandered. Would be interested to see their analytics for how many people listen to everything all the way through. 

After speeding through that exhibit I swapped the audio guide over for a different one that was being put on specially for Pride called Inclusive Love. It took you around the gallery, stopping at about 30 paintings along the way that had a homosexual element of some description. It included a couple of San Sebastians, Boy in a turban holding a nosegay, and a few from gay artists. This was perfect for me: it was on a topic I was interested in, took me around the whole gallery, and the audio guide was short and sharp and interesting. There were also some beautiful Kandinskys.

El Retiro and Mercado de San Miguel

Museumed out and desperately in need of some food I left the museum and walked to El Retiro, the giant park in the city. I figured there’d be some places to eat inside and then have a lie down on the grass. There were restaurants dotted around but they mostly sold fast food – chips, pizza – and some other fried things which didn’t look appetising. In the end though I settled for an icecream, walked past the Crystal Palace, and found a nice patch of grass to lie down on and pass the hour. I was very close to falling asleep. It was heaven.

I decided not to stay in Retiro all afternoon and, led by my stomach, headed to Mercado de San Miguel, a place recommended for its tapas. I almost walked past it, thinking I was going to a hole-in-the-wall kind of bar. It’s a big glass building that includes lots of different shops inside selling bite-sized food and glass-sized drinks. It was packed with people and I was spoilt for choice.

In the end, I got a couple of anchovies on capsicum, some cheese on biscuits, a crab cake with seaweed salad, a giant brownie and a glass of Spritz. It was wonderful. By this stage I thought I should head back to the hotel to make sure Glen wasn’t dead. I returned to find him still asleep so I lay down for a nap.

Guernica

A few hours later we went to the Centre de Arte Reina Sofia art gallery as they had free entry between 7pm and 9pm. We joined the queue and as neither of us were feeling hugely like spending the full two hours in the museum, we went up to the second floor in search of Guernica, seeing a selection of other great cubist art along the way before standing in front of this big work of art.

It was wonderful to just stand and gaze upon it, noticing different things like the broken sword at the bottom or really taking in the positioning of the horse. And to think, Glen didn’t want to see it! He was enthralled as well. We left, sated, and returned to our hotel.

Later that evening we joined Scott, Luke and Juan back at Plaza de Pedro Zerolo. More giant drinks, more dancing, more awesomeness. The music was great…or at least I loved it as one video Glen took clearly demonstrates. 

We went into a club/bar called Zarpa after the stage show finished, met a couple of guys from Melbourne and chatted to them for a bit, before we left to go to another club across the square. We joined the ridiculously long and slow moving queue for a while but I think it got to about 2am and we were going nowhere fast so we called it quits and went home for blessed sleep.