We woke up with our 5:30 am alarm and quickly got ready in 20 minutes. Our bags were already packed so the hotel check-out was swift. Our taxi to the train station was waiting for us. We didn't encounter any traffic and were at the station around 6:15 am. Since our 7:05 am train's boarding wasn't to start till 6:40 am, we sat in the waiting area and had a quick breakfast - chocolate croissant, cream croissant and orange juice. We stayed away from coffee to be able to sleep on the train.
On this trip, we have taken hi-speed trains for three different segments - round trip between Paris and Amsterdam, round trip between Rome and Venice and today's Barcelona to Madrid train. Today's journey between Barcelona and Madrid was the fastest with a top speed of 300 km/h although the other segments were also quick with speeds exceeding 250 km/h. This route between Barcelona and Madrid is relatively new and was started in 2008. We had a very comfortable ride that was helped by the fact that we had bought upgraded seats with the intention of making the tail end of our Euro trip more comfortable.
During the almost 3 hour ride, we must've slept for about 2 hours. Most of the ride was through plains - both green and dry - and some hilly areas where it slowed down. Our only stop was at Toledo and we were in Madrid at exactly 9:50 am.
Our hotel isn't too far from the train station so we took a cab that got us to the hotel in less than 10 minutes. It was an entertaining ride as the driver tried his best to tell us about the major attractions on our way with limited English vocabulary. He also told us that there is an "El Clasico" tomorrow - a football match between fierce rivals FC Barcelona and Real Madrid. Too bad that the match is in Barcelona otherwise we could've seen it live. He told us that if Real Madrid wins, there will be celebrations and fireworks in the Neptuno square next to our hotel so we should look out for that. If we have time, we might catch some of the action on TV in a club to experience the atmosphere. Our hotel's location is across the road from Madrid's world-class Prado Museum.
After checking-in our hotel and freshening up, we grabbed a focaccia bread sandwich with coffee at the next door Starbucks. Then we crossed the road to enter the Prado Museum. There were no lines at the entrance but even if there had been lines, our advance-purchased ticket would've saved us the wait. No photos were allowed so our complete focus was on just appreciating the art.
The Prado Museum has one of the biggest collections of paintings in the world and our audio guide included narrations for over 300 selected works. We ended up seeing about 50 masterpieces that we picked from the museum's recommendations and our guidebook. Art is subjective and for us, the historical context is as important as the painting technique on display. Through that lens, we loved about half of the 50 pieces that we saw. It took us almost 5 hours of mostly standing, some walking and lots of commentary-listening to get to this conclusion. Overall, The Lourve in Paris has more paintings of the highest quality but the Prado isn't far behind. We are finally beginning to understand what it means when an art connoisseur talks about Venetian colors or Michelangelo's influence. We saw paintings that you can only appreciate when you stand at an angle and paintings that give a 3D effect. We saw the stylistic differences between painters such as Velazquez, Goya, Rubens, Titian, Greco and Murillo.
After 5 hours of sensory overload of art, we walked back to our hotel with aching feet and decided to rest. Samia worked on making a collage for Sohaib uncle's birthday while I took a nap or as the Spanish call it, a siesta. Around 7 pm, we went down and had tapas at our hotel's restaurant. We tried a fancy looking Spanish omelette in a cup (egg foam and fried onions), Russian salad (more like a dip with crackers) and of course, our favorite patatas. This time we tries two different varieties of patatas, the regular mayo/garlic version and a spicy version with hot sauce. We finished off dinner with some tiramisu for dessert and then started walking to our next big attraction of the day - live Flamenco dancing performance at the best tablao restaurant of Madrid called Cardamomo.
In short, the performance was excellent. The first half when people were eating (and we were sipping on our free juices) was not as engaging but the second half was exceptional. The stage was small and made of wooden floor so when the dancers wearing shoes with heels tapped their feet on it, it gave off a significant audible sound. The walls were lined with two singers, one drummer and two guitarists. There were 4 dancers in total - 2 women and 2 men. Each of the dancers took turns to perform and there was only one little performance where more than one person was dancing at the same time. The dance is so intense and so taxing on the performers' feet that each performance cannot exceed more than 2 minutes. The Flamenco is a traditional dance of Spain and Madrid has some of its most acclaimed performers. The first half performances were by one man and two women but then we saw the 4th dancer in the second half. His hair was completely gray and he was their star performer, perhaps the director for the other three dancers too but we are not sure since announcements were only in Spanish. His mastery of his feet can be judged from the fact that he was the only dancer who performed without music as well and you could hear every single tap distinctly. Amazing performance!
After a day of appreciating audio visual arts, we are back at our hotel and off to bed now. Till tomorrow, take care and good night!
On this trip, we have taken hi-speed trains for three different segments - round trip between Paris and Amsterdam, round trip between Rome and Venice and today's Barcelona to Madrid train. Today's journey between Barcelona and Madrid was the fastest with a top speed of 300 km/h although the other segments were also quick with speeds exceeding 250 km/h. This route between Barcelona and Madrid is relatively new and was started in 2008. We had a very comfortable ride that was helped by the fact that we had bought upgraded seats with the intention of making the tail end of our Euro trip more comfortable.
During the almost 3 hour ride, we must've slept for about 2 hours. Most of the ride was through plains - both green and dry - and some hilly areas where it slowed down. Our only stop was at Toledo and we were in Madrid at exactly 9:50 am.
Our hotel isn't too far from the train station so we took a cab that got us to the hotel in less than 10 minutes. It was an entertaining ride as the driver tried his best to tell us about the major attractions on our way with limited English vocabulary. He also told us that there is an "El Clasico" tomorrow - a football match between fierce rivals FC Barcelona and Real Madrid. Too bad that the match is in Barcelona otherwise we could've seen it live. He told us that if Real Madrid wins, there will be celebrations and fireworks in the Neptuno square next to our hotel so we should look out for that. If we have time, we might catch some of the action on TV in a club to experience the atmosphere. Our hotel's location is across the road from Madrid's world-class Prado Museum.
After checking-in our hotel and freshening up, we grabbed a focaccia bread sandwich with coffee at the next door Starbucks. Then we crossed the road to enter the Prado Museum. There were no lines at the entrance but even if there had been lines, our advance-purchased ticket would've saved us the wait. No photos were allowed so our complete focus was on just appreciating the art.
The Prado Museum has one of the biggest collections of paintings in the world and our audio guide included narrations for over 300 selected works. We ended up seeing about 50 masterpieces that we picked from the museum's recommendations and our guidebook. Art is subjective and for us, the historical context is as important as the painting technique on display. Through that lens, we loved about half of the 50 pieces that we saw. It took us almost 5 hours of mostly standing, some walking and lots of commentary-listening to get to this conclusion. Overall, The Lourve in Paris has more paintings of the highest quality but the Prado isn't far behind. We are finally beginning to understand what it means when an art connoisseur talks about Venetian colors or Michelangelo's influence. We saw paintings that you can only appreciate when you stand at an angle and paintings that give a 3D effect. We saw the stylistic differences between painters such as Velazquez, Goya, Rubens, Titian, Greco and Murillo.
After 5 hours of sensory overload of art, we walked back to our hotel with aching feet and decided to rest. Samia worked on making a collage for Sohaib uncle's birthday while I took a nap or as the Spanish call it, a siesta. Around 7 pm, we went down and had tapas at our hotel's restaurant. We tried a fancy looking Spanish omelette in a cup (egg foam and fried onions), Russian salad (more like a dip with crackers) and of course, our favorite patatas. This time we tries two different varieties of patatas, the regular mayo/garlic version and a spicy version with hot sauce. We finished off dinner with some tiramisu for dessert and then started walking to our next big attraction of the day - live Flamenco dancing performance at the best tablao restaurant of Madrid called Cardamomo.
In short, the performance was excellent. The first half when people were eating (and we were sipping on our free juices) was not as engaging but the second half was exceptional. The stage was small and made of wooden floor so when the dancers wearing shoes with heels tapped their feet on it, it gave off a significant audible sound. The walls were lined with two singers, one drummer and two guitarists. There were 4 dancers in total - 2 women and 2 men. Each of the dancers took turns to perform and there was only one little performance where more than one person was dancing at the same time. The dance is so intense and so taxing on the performers' feet that each performance cannot exceed more than 2 minutes. The Flamenco is a traditional dance of Spain and Madrid has some of its most acclaimed performers. The first half performances were by one man and two women but then we saw the 4th dancer in the second half. His hair was completely gray and he was their star performer, perhaps the director for the other three dancers too but we are not sure since announcements were only in Spanish. His mastery of his feet can be judged from the fact that he was the only dancer who performed without music as well and you could hear every single tap distinctly. Amazing performance!
After a day of appreciating audio visual arts, we are back at our hotel and off to bed now. Till tomorrow, take care and good night!
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