STL DPB IN MADRID - LATE DINING

When North Americans arrive in Spain, they learn quickly that local dining hours are much different than ours. For sit-down restaurants, lunch is served from 1 to 4 PM and can be the main meal of the day. They don't open for dinner until 8 or 8:30 PM. At that hour the customers are mostly Americans, Brits and Germans. The locals start rolling in about 9:30 or 10. This picture was taken after we had finished our dinner (8 PM booking, of course) a few blocks away and we went for a walk. The place was plenty busy.

I apologize that this hasn't been much of a St. Louis photo blog lately. I might pick up some images on Saturday but then Sunday it's off to New York for a five day street photography workshop, Packing it in while I still can.              

STL DPB IN MADRID - JUST HAVING A FEW FRIENDS FOR DINNER

The royal palace in Madrid is a thing to behold. It's bigger than the Chateau de Versailles, albeit without the latter's vast gardens. After the horrors of the Spanish civil war almost 90 years ago, the country is now a constitutional monarchy with a functioning democracy (although the Catalonians and Basques might differ). It maintains a degree of grandeur of which the British would approve.           

STL DPB IN MADRID - APEROL SPRITZ

Mercado de San Miguel, just off Plaza Mayor in Madrid. It's not exactly where you would buy provisions for home, but more like the most high-end and energetic food court (in the American sense) I've ever seen. And at 5 o'clock on Friday it was packed with Spaniards snarfing down tapas, raciones, bocadillas, and swilling cerveza, vino, vermut and, most important of all, aperitivos.

This made us think of our old friend and former City Daily Photo colleague, Jilly Bennett, in Gorbio, France, outside of Menton. One late afternoon we were sitting with her in her town's tiny square when she recommended that we order an Aperol Spritz, a blend of Aperol, prosecco, ice and an orange slice. Heaven. It's on our table every weekend. Thanks, Jilly,      

STL DPB IN MADRID - MINIMALISM

Richard Serra's room at the Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid. Some people hate his stuff, some like it. We love it.      

STL DPB IN MADRID - ZAPATERIA

A shoe store just off Plaza Mayor in Madrid, closed for the night.             

STL DPB IN MADRID - THE PRADO FROM THE OUTSIDE

We have good news and we have bad news: photography is not allowed in the galleries of the vast Prado Museum. That's it, both sides of the issue. Photo junkies like me get antsy if we can't press the shutter button at will. On the other hand, the policy forces people to put down their phones and actually look at the art. How refreshing.

The collection of European painting is stunning but the crowd control could be better. The line at security was terrible, maybe an hour long, but because we had pre-booked with a senior discount they let us cut the line. We had also purchased a 90 minute tour of masterpieces in English, which revealed so much we would not notice on our own. Five hours was all our old bodies could take but you could spend days there.

             

STL DPB IN MADRID - GRAN VIA METRO

We spent part of Wednesday at the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum. It's an enormous place based on the collection of a very rich German-Spanish couple that grew and grew, and was eventually sold to the Spanish state. It isn't well known in the U.S. We could only cover a small part of it before our aged joints and muscles said enough.

After a leisurely lunch in the museum's cafe, we took a walk through some of Madrid's great public spaces. The Gran Via is hard to characterize, maybe something like London's Regent Street, full of grand buildings but longer and more varied, The metro stop gives a nod to Paris' art deco system.

Tomorrow we confront The Prado.