Museo del Prado

Thursday was our big day of doing the tourist things. We walked from our hotel down Gran Via to the Prado. It was a beautiful day, lots of sunshine, not too hot, and our eyes were big as we saw part of this new city. 

I’d done a bit of research on what to see at the Prado, finding a list of the “six must sees” (though we only saw four. Yes, I know it’s a bit touristy. Yes, I know it makes me sound uncultured. But an hour’s visit to a museum is ample and my legs thanked me.

The museum was busy. We got in trouble for taking photos. The place was huge. Highlights were the paintings of the same scene but done by two separate artists centuries apart, kind of like a ‘spot the difference’ thing (the absence/presence of fig leaves, the shape of breasts and musculature, the positioning of the serpent’s head were just a few).

We wandered through the galleries, stopping as we pleased, but generally making our way to Velaszquez’s Las Meninas. I absolutely adore this painting. What we see is a painting of the little princess with her two attendants as well as the painter painting on a canvas and looking directly out at the viewer. In the background is a mirror and in the mirror are the duke and duchess. What I love about it is what everyone loves about it and that the while the painting is of the girl and the painter and the attendants it’s really about the duke and duchess having their portrait painted. Total gimmick but so so cool.

We descended to the lower levels to check out the Goya paintings, along with Saturnus. Grim. And amongst a whole lot of other grim paintings. The lighting in these lower rooms was pretty low which was hurting my eyes. Next we went to see The Garden of Earthly Delights by Bosch. Such rich paintings with so much to examine. 

The other paintings were were encouraged to see was The Trinity by El Greco and David victorious over Goliath by Michelangelo but I forgot about them and then we got museum fatigue so we left in search of lunch. 

It took us a while to find a place, mostly because there weren’t many restaurants in the area, and those that were there weren’t open yet, it being only about midday. We walked past the gardens and down to Opera where we eventually found some place to get some food. It was ok, hit the spot. 

High Heels Race

After lunch we returned to the hotel, taking a few trains to get there, and then rested for a few hours. We’d seen on Facebook that Scott from Perth was visiting Juan and Luke (also from Perth) so we got in touch and crashed their party. So glad we did. They were going to watch the High Heels Race down the road, something I’d wanted to see but forgot about, and so at a little after five we met them down the race route, picked a spot, bought some drinks, chatted and waited for the race to begin.

What a lot of fun! There were races of five runners in each heat, all wearing high heels of varying sorts. Most were men with about two women out of the whole thing. There were huge cheers for the competitors as they risked broken ankles hurriedly clomping down cobbled streets towards the finish line. It was all over very quickly but it was so much fun and such a great community atmosphere. Definitely worth seeing.

After the race, we went to El Tigre Sidra Bar where you could get a big glass of beer or cider for €5 and they bring you free tapas, mostly containing carbs, but also with some dead pig. Very popular place with students and anyone wanting a bargain. 

Flamenco

Glen and I downed our drinks and scoffed some food then had to quickly get across town to watch a flamenco performance that I’d bought tickets to. The venue was called Corral de la Morería. Glen used to dance flamenco so it was a must-do for us and luckily had been given a good recommendation for a place to go. We walked hurriedly to the venue, arriving five minutes late. Amazingly, it had started on time. 

We were taken into a very dark room and shown to a table in the back corner that nevertheless had a fantastic view of the stage. We were also at a table of four but there were only the two of us so we had space to finish our sweating.

The performance was energetic, giving the guitarist, the two male dancers and the one female dancer a chance to shine before coming back at the end to perform together. There was a lot more thrashing than I was expecting but I enjoyed myself and better still it only went for an hour. Bite-sized flamenco. Glen would like to just stumble upon a flamenco bar next time rather than go for a planned tourist performance but at least this way we actually saw flamenco in Spain.

Dancing at Pedro Zerolo

From there we returned to the hotel, showered, changed and went to meet Scott, Luke and Juan at Plaza de Pedro Zerolo for the free outdoor party. Bought some ridiculously strong large drinks (i think there was about a third of a bottle of vodka in mine – all for €6) and danced away to some awesome music amongst a very happy welcoming and fun crowd.

That went until about midnight and then we went to the square over Chueca train station to hang out with some of the guy’s friends. Glen left to go to the WE Party, which, in retrospect, would have been good for me to go to as well, but I was having a good time talking to people so I stayed with the promise of dancing at a local bar/club.

We eventually – after standing around for a very long time – went to a bar and I met an English deaf guy called Alexander in the queue out the front. I signed to him and he signed back, though he knew BSL and I knew AUSLAN. Luckily there was enough difference and he was easy to understand. Scott invited him to join us for watching the parade on Saturday, which he did.

The bar was a bit ho-hum. The music was on softly but at least that meant we could have a conversation. After a couple of drinks, however, we decided to call it quits, wanting to leave something in the tank for the rest of the weekend, and went our separate ways.

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