The Prado and the Botanic Gardens.. Last Day in Madrid

After another night in our hot little Mad Hostel 4 -bed room recovering from our strange drag-queen and jack daniels infused night before, we decided to make the most of our last day in Madrid by heading out to another of the 3 must-see Madrid art galleries, Museo del Prado. It seemed to be much busier than the Sofia Rene, and we had to wait in a queue outside in the sun to get tickets, before being sent round to the main entrance. Once inside we strolled appreciatively (at first..) through dozens of rooms of medieval and renaissance works, huge moody canvases caked with dark, mostly biblical scenes. I really liked some of them, and HATED many of them, but admired the skill put into all of them. We got a little insight into that: as we were walking round, artists from a Madrilean art school were sat with canvases and oil paints copying paintings. It was incredibly impressive, it obviously took a fairly long time, a lot of concentration and a hell of a lot of skill. The copies were to such a high standard - obviously the style of the originals was very intricate and detailed, and the copy painters emulated it almost exactly: often the differences were imperceptible.

My favourite part of the trip to the Prado, as it happens, was a youngish painter copying a portrait. He seemed to capture the essence of being a bohemian artist, and was very attractive, as seems to be the trend for Spanish boys so far. We shuffled around to get a look at his painting ( yes, the painting) and admire it. Unfortunately he had not actually begun painting again for the day and was just preparing his palette, so we returned later to see him painting away very impressively. He looked up, saw us, and smiled and waved, which was somewhat unexpected as we didn't know him. I waved back perhaps too enthusiastically. Later on, when we returned to the hostel, I thought I saw him in our bar as we sat blogging. Jo didn't think it was him but I like to think it was - and it would explain why he may have waved as he might have recognised us from around the hostel. Jury's out on that one.

After tiring ourselves out shuffling through the Prado, and perhaps somewhat tired of being surrounded by fellow tourists, we struck out for lunch and found ourselves in a lovely restaurant next to the Botanic Gardens, titling itself in accordance. It was great as there were hardly any other tourists there at all, if any - we could only hear spanish. We had a spanish-style slow lunch drenched in sun, with finches darting around us, and briefly, an accordion player serenading us. In this instance not a touristy thing as he serenaded all the Spaniards too. He was pretty good, played one of my favourite songs - la vie en rose - odd choice in Spain, and also somewhat less graceful on an accordion. Then we happily trotted down to the Botanic Gardens - about 1 euro to get in, and very nice too. Although I prefer our hometown Oxford Botanic Gardens! We had a nice time relaxing on a bench. with the birdies.

After our usual sweaty siesta we headed off, on Madrid time (9pm), for dinner. We went to a restaurant called La Artemisa or something to that effect, not far from the almost unbearably popular and crowded Sol plaza and area. Luckily the restaurant is about 10 minutes walk away and nowhere near as crowded. We had a great vegetarian dinner - I was really surprised to find so many good places to eat in Madrid (seeing as the concept of being vegetarian seems to be somewhat alien to many - vegetarianism seems to be a new thing in trendy areas like La Latina and Malasana). Finally we headed off to a very popular and touristy establishment for some churros con chocolate - essentially long thin doughnut type affairs with syrupy and sweet cups of chocolate: tasty, but in my opinion, a little overrated, at least where we tried them. Cheap though, at only 3 euros each, and we couldn't even finish the portions we were given. My advice is (unless you have the stamina of a Madrilean bull) to share a portion between 2 or 3 people.

All in all an absolutely fantastic day, if I remember anything else I'll add it in later. See you,

Meg