When in Madrid on a Sunday you join the locals for some market, park and art experiences. This morning, we made our way to the El Rastro Flea Market. Mentioned as early as 1740 the market was originally a hub for the sale, exchange and general peddling of second-hand clothes and I did indeed see two stalls that seem to still stick with this tradition. However, these days it’s more of a general market involving around 1,000 traders selling their wares in a triangular block in the vicinity of Calle de la Ribera de Curtidores between 9.00am and 3.00pm each Sunday.
And it is CROWDED! We shuffled along the stalls listening to a canary singing from a balcony somewhere and a variety of artists performing live music. Our noses were tickled by cigarette smoke, clouds of vapor from e-cigarettes and incense. Unfortunately, the wares being offered were largely mass-produced junk. The same cheap jewellery repeated at many stalls, and the same fast fashion, shoes and handbags offered over and over again. We only explored a fraction of the market before deciding that it was not worth the hype and heading back to the apartment. Although walking back up the hill I did finally spy a blouse that I fancied that didn’t look as cheap and nasty as most items. It was correspondingly more expensive though!
We purchased some lunch on the way back and sat down for half an hour or so before venturing out again. For our second outing it was off to the park, Parque de el Retiro. We walked along Calle Alcalá lined with glorious buildings and leading to the Fuente de Cibeles (Cibeles Fountain) an 18th century neoclassical fountain depicting the goddess Cybele on a chariot pulled by two lions. The backdrop to the fountain is the Palacio de Cibeles which is an impressive building finished in 1904 and functioning as the city’s cultural centre.
And from here we spied another market which was much less crowded and much more artisanal. We strolled along these market stalls without being crushed by a mass of other people. I enjoyed being able to get close enough to the stalls to actually see the hand-crafted wares on offer. Most of the stall holders were offering hand-made jewelry but there were also bags, clothes and some pottery. All of it much more beautiful than what we saw this morning. Tempted by several pairs of earrings at a number of different stalls I restricted myself to one purchase only. So glad I didn’t waste money earlier on cheap and nasty earrings!
We could see the arch of the Puerta de Alcalá so walked along to it knowing that it was near the north-west corner of Parque de el Retiro. The neoclassical triumphal gate made of granite was erected in 1778 and was once the main entrance to the city of Madrid. It sits at the junction of three of the city’s most well-known streets: Calle de Alcalá, the city’s longest road, Calle de Alfonso XII and Calle de Serrano. The gate was designed by architect Francesco Sabatini for King Carlos III who reputedly was less than impressed by the gate that welcomed him when he first arrived in Madrid in 1759! It was the first gate of its kind to be built after the fall of the Roman Empire and it is older than Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate and the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. The gate was given its name because it was on the road that led to Alcalá de Henares, Miguel de Cervantes’ (author of Don Quixote) hometown.
We wandered into the park and straight away we were much more impressed with this park than we were with the Parque de Maria Luisa in Sevilla. The 125-hectare park is UNESCO World Heritage Listed and is planted with some 15,000 trees. It was once the royal garden of the old Buen Retiro Palace that was built by the kings of Spain in the 17th century. Initially it was exclusively for the use of the royal family but over time it was opened to the public. In 1868 it was recognized as one of the most beautiful public parks in Spain.
We strolled along the Salón del Estanque beside the Great Pond of El Retiro looking across to the impressive Monumento a Alfonso XII. The monument by Catalan architect José Grases Riera was commissioned by his son, Alfonso XIII and inaugurated in 1922. We were able to enjoy the view of the lake and the monument as we ate ice cream! We had planned to buy our ice-creams next door to the apartment again, but La Deliceria was closed. Thank goodness we tracked down ice creams in the park.
Turning down the Puerta de América we made our way past the Palacio de Velázquez (which houses the Museum of Modern Art) and the Palacio de Crystal. The Glass Palace is a fine example of a cast iron structure. Using Joseph Paxton’s Crystal Palace in Hyde Park London as his inspiration architect Ricardo Velázquez Bosco designed the greenhouse in 1887 to showcase flora and fauna as part of an exhibition on the Philippines at the time a Spanish colony. The cast iron structure filled with glass plates sits on a brick base decorated with ceramic tiles by renowned Spanish ceramicist, Daniel Zuloaga.
There is another pond located beside the currently closed glasshouse filled with carp, tortoises and a pair of black swans a long, long way from home. Do black swans get confused and end up on the other side of the world by themselves or have they been introduced through human intervention??
With the afternoon getting away from us … again … and with a vast amount of the park left unexplored, Bernie asked Syri to take us to the Museo National del Prado for some art. We zig zagged our way out of the park with our fingers crossed that the entrance Syri was leading us to would be open. Yes!
We arrived at the museum from the rear of the building alongside the entrance to the Real Jardín Botanico. We made our way around to the front and then had to walk to the other end of the building to find the point at which tickets are sold. My, art is popular in Madrid or so we thought. We couldn’t believe how long the queue was at 4.00pm in the afternoon. We joined the queue and Bernie stood checking on the internet if there would be any benefit in buying our tickets online. I started wandering towards the head of the queue to find out how long it was. As I was heading towards the front of the queue a staff member in a red shirt started yelling instructions in Spanish at the hordes in the queue and people started moving to another place.
What? What is going on? I asked him if he could tell me the instructions in English. Yes, the people over there are queuing to enter for free at 5.00pm. If you want to pay to enter before 5.00pm you should queue here. Right, better find Bernie so we can decide whether we pay to go in soon (hopefully) or queue for 45 minutes in the sun to enter for free after 5.00pm.
We decided to pay the entry fee and we did manage to get inside the museum by 4.30pm. Right, half and hour to at least start looking around before all the cheapskates get in and there’s only 100 rooms and galleries housing the museum’s permanent displays! The origins of the collection date back to the Spanish monarchs of the 16th and 17th centuries. Their passion for collecting meant that by the end of the 17th century they had amassed the finest Royal collection in Europe. The museum first opened its doors in 1819.
Much of the collection is painting of the colourist tradition in the style of Titian and many of his works are featured. We also saw pieces by Caravaggio, Goya, Rubens, Van Dyck, El Greco and Rembrandt along with works by artist’s whose names were unfamiliar. So much art! And one Picasso that rather seemed as if it should be over at the modern art museum?! At 6.15pm we called it quits and left half of Level 0 unexplored and the second part of Level 2 unseen. Two hours of culture was enough for us!
We made our way back to the apartment and put our feet up. I was very happy to sit down because it’s been another big day exploring what Madrid has to offer. At dinner time we found a restaurant nearby call Las Bravas. Finally, we managed to order an appropriate amount of food. The restaurant didn’t try to encourage us to have dessert, on a night when we felt like we could actually fit it in. We decided to return to the apartment via Maestro Churrero. We only ordered the four pack to share, with chocolate sauce of course. There was a girl sitting beside us working her way through a twelve pack … all on her own!
Steps: 14,096 (8.73kms)