We had class yesterday from 10-11:30 where we learned about the geographic history of Madrid. Apparently, Madrid is of Arabic decent and was run primarily by the Muslims until 1492–consequently the same year America was discovered by Christopher Columbus. Madrid is actually an Arabic word meaning land over water. There is one river in Madrid but it wasn't used for transportation like many other European cities had. This is because when Madrid was founded, people were past the point of using rivers for transportation, but there is still a large area of water located beneath the city that gave it its name. Madrid was actually not the first capital of Spain; it was Toledo–where we are going on an excursion this Friday so stay tuned to learn more about Toledo! This is the reason for it being a few centuries younger than other European capitals.
In class, we discussed how Muhammed the first had founded Madrid and created its foundatio by building the royal palace along the western edge of the city and then building a wall around it to protect it. This brings me to my palabra del dia. Today's palabra is "real" (pronounced ray-all) which translates to "royal" in English. So when you see things like el palacio real and Real Madrid (the soccer/football team), that doesn't mean that they are really a palace or soccer team. They are royal. It's something that is easily confused so I thought I would just clear that up for you. So after learning about the foundation of the city, we decided to take a brief walking tour to see some of these places.
We began our walk in el Puerto del Sol (our class is located here which is why pretty much everything begins and/or ends here) and began walking towards el Palacio Real. We had been looking at some maps in class that showed how Madrid has expanded over the centuries and I learned that the Puerta del Sol, which means "Sun Gate" or "Sun Door" in Spanish, was actually one of the gates in the wall around Spain after the first or second wall expansion that people had to go through to get into the city. Naturally, they wouldn't just let anyone into their city, so they had to have a solid wall and gate system for any people who wanted to enter or exit the city and el Puerto del Sol was one of the main gates for this purpose.
Along our walk, we saw some of Madrid's original plazas, including la Plaza Mayor, where they were presently setting up a stage for a free concert for the San Isidras Festival that is happening all week. A gruesome fact we learned is that la Plaza Mayor was where most of the public executions took place. However, now the Plaza houses many tapas restaurants–that are grossly overpriced and of poor quality according to my professor–so try not to think about all those public beheadings next time you're sampling tapas in the terrace at la Plaza Mayor.
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| La Plaza Mayor |
It took a little bit to make it over to the palace, but the first thing we noticed when we got there was the huge cathedral next to it. This is the original royal cathedral that was built for the palace. Our professor was telling us that this is nothing compared to the architectural beauty of other cathedrals around Spain though, which I find hard to believe.
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| Me and the roomie in front of the royal cathedral |
We arrived just in time to see the changing of the guard ceremony that I guess every big building and monument has. I enjoyed this ceremony though because it was unique. It had a lot of music and it didn't last too terribly long, which is just the way every changing of the guard ceremony needs to be.
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| The changing of the guard ceremony |
Since the palacio real is on the edge of the city, we could see the mountains and vast land off in the distance, which really is something incredible to see inside the boundaries of a large city. That is one of the things that I think makes Madrid so unique. You get the city feel AND the country feel, which is pretty amazing.
Our last stop on our walk was actually underground in a metro station. Our professor had been telling us that many old European cities just reconstruct themselves by building on top of their old structures. So naturally, if we wanted to see some old ruins, we had to go underground. Apparently they uncovered a lot of old walls when they built the subway system and continue to do so as they expand it. In the station named "Opera," they actually have a museum devoted to these old walls where they have preserved a few of them. Unfortunately, the museum was closed when we got there so we were unable to learn more but we took lots of pictures of what we could see.
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This was the end of our walking tour but we went onto our next activity for the day which was a picnic in the Retiro park. I have learned that the Retiro was built as a getaway house and garden/park area for the royal family when they needed to get away from the stressful life of the palace (I'm sure it was so stressful...) but now it is used as a park open to the general public very similar to that of Central Park in NYC but a little bit smaller. It definitely didn't feel small though. I could have easily gotten lost if we didn't have our professor with us who fortunately knew her way around the city and park very well.
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| This was a pond in the Retiro where people could rent boats and row themselves around |
We
slowly lunched in the park and wandered around until it was time to head
to our next activity: the famous art museums of Madrid.
Our first visit was to the Reina Sofia museum of art, which had a lot of more modern paintings in it like those of Picasso and Dali. I had difficulty understanding some of them, namely Dali's paintings that use surrealism. Who knew that a hook through your body was a symbol for love and a grasshopper with ants on its womb was a symbol for happiness? I sure didn't. Who comes up with this stuff? It is very easy to see how talented these artists were but I just don't understand the logic behind the paintings. It's a little to out there for me personally, but I can definitely still appreciate it.
After about an hour and a half in the Reina Sofia, we went over to the Prado. Unfortunately, by this point, I could hardly stand, let alone walk, and my mind was about turned to mush from everything I had seen that day so I really need to take some time to go back to the Prado and check everything out again because I absorbed very little from this visit. We saw many historical paintings here though, my favorite of which were painted by El Greco, naturally. However, I can't fail to give a shoutout to the other amazing painters we saw like Valzquez and Goya, who are also extremely impressive. Most of these paintings were made in the 18th century and were representative of some historical point, like the royal families and the wars, things like that. I definitely need to go back though, which is a rather fortunate thing anyways because I get in for free with my student ID and passport! So, I am sure I will have more to say about this amazing museum in the days to come.
As soon as our museum tour was over, my roomie and I bolted back to our flat, had dinner and went straight to bed. I'm sure by now, you can understand why I am posting this so late. Better late than never though. Check back in a few hours for my post about today (May 14th) which is significantly less busy and much more relaxing!
Our first visit was to the Reina Sofia museum of art, which had a lot of more modern paintings in it like those of Picasso and Dali. I had difficulty understanding some of them, namely Dali's paintings that use surrealism. Who knew that a hook through your body was a symbol for love and a grasshopper with ants on its womb was a symbol for happiness? I sure didn't. Who comes up with this stuff? It is very easy to see how talented these artists were but I just don't understand the logic behind the paintings. It's a little to out there for me personally, but I can definitely still appreciate it.
After about an hour and a half in the Reina Sofia, we went over to the Prado. Unfortunately, by this point, I could hardly stand, let alone walk, and my mind was about turned to mush from everything I had seen that day so I really need to take some time to go back to the Prado and check everything out again because I absorbed very little from this visit. We saw many historical paintings here though, my favorite of which were painted by El Greco, naturally. However, I can't fail to give a shoutout to the other amazing painters we saw like Valzquez and Goya, who are also extremely impressive. Most of these paintings were made in the 18th century and were representative of some historical point, like the royal families and the wars, things like that. I definitely need to go back though, which is a rather fortunate thing anyways because I get in for free with my student ID and passport! So, I am sure I will have more to say about this amazing museum in the days to come.
As soon as our museum tour was over, my roomie and I bolted back to our flat, had dinner and went straight to bed. I'm sure by now, you can understand why I am posting this so late. Better late than never though. Check back in a few hours for my post about today (May 14th) which is significantly less busy and much more relaxing!
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