Alarm
at eight and breakfast at nine. They have the classic Hospes service with
cereals in little jars, wonderful fruit, an amazing selection of pastries
including macaroons and their preserves that include violet preserve. My
yoghurt had a garnish of passion fruit, but surprised me by having a little
violet preserve right at the bottom. So delicious!
Then
it was time to walk down to the Prado, to collect our tickets, audio guides and
museum plans. We had the most fantastic time discovering all sorts of treasures
from a special exhibition of Picasso's Acrobat on a Ball on loan from the Pushkin Museum,
Moscow, to
Albrecht Deurer; Dutch masters to Italians; British artists and Flemish
painters. It is just full of major works of art as one would expect. We had to
have a couple of breaks during our five hours, and although we reached pretty
much every corner, we had to skim passed some of the many, just taking in major
pieces suggested by several paper guides and the audio guides we had hired. A
great discovery were some of the Spanish painters of the late nineteenth/ early
twentieth century. They are not widely known outside Spain, on the whole, for example
Fortuny and Rico.
When
we had finished our visit, we made our way to the exit and crossed the street
to the Real Jardin Botanico, where we strolled in the shade of the trees,
breathing in the scented air and looking at the lovely flowers and plants on
display. The rose garden and dahlias were in full bloom; the veggie/herb garden
was getting to the end; but we did find the tribute to Carl Linneaus as he
overlooked the tranquil lake.
We took the high walk through the steamy
glasshouse, which proved to be much cooler at ground level, and found an area
dedicated to carnivorous plants, where snails seem to be the regular food. At
the end we did find the 'pantaloon' tree, an elm that has a divided trunk
resembling a pair of inverted trousers!
We
came back to our room for a short rest before taking our postcards to the
restaurant/ cafe where we started with tapas, and progressed to main courses of
steak and hake before calling it a day and collapsing into bed at nearly
midnight. Another big day tomorrow with, hopefully the Thyssen and the Reina Sofa
Museums to see.
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