Simon Huggins's blog

Thu, 28 Aug 2014

Madrid

After the tourist town of Salamanca, Madrid seemed much more normal. More mixed for a start and it was a real city that had people working in it rather than just a place people only really go as students or as tourists.

Also the museums in Madrid were great. I loved the permanent collections in the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia although the Richard Hamilton exhibition really wasn't for me. The Prado is full of some undeniable masterpieces but they don't really work for me as they are in a period heavily dominated with religion where essentially every picture seemed to be depicting some bible scene or other. It was good to see Las Meninas before I saw the Picasso version in Barcelona though.

El Rastro is a huge flea market on Sundays and it was definitely worth seeing. It was amazing that it was so large that there were very specialist stalls like this pressure gauge one. No I've no idea why either but...

Madrid's old part is lovely to wander through too although I think I preferred Salamanca's Plaza Mayor. I went out on the gay scene in Madrid too and as you do found myself at a party in a bar that had shutdown recently which is just what happens if you start talking to people in a bar apparently...

Next up was Cordoba

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