When we first arrived in Madrid,  I went to this lovely plaza, Plaza de España, where I saw a statue of Miguel de Cervantes and in front of this statue, statues of the iconic Don Quixote de la Mancha and Sancho, his counterpart.  I reigned myself in and did not burst out singing, “I am I Don Quixote” from “Man of La Mancha” a wonderful musical. We had a scrumptious dinner and I tried different foods that were served to us such as octopus, which was delicious. At one of our meals in Spain, we were served a glass of wine to taste, then some type of liquor made of herbs, and then a glass of Cava, the Spanish type of champagne. Just another typical meal….  The next day we saw the Royal Palace which was interesting. Our Rick Steves tour guide was wonderful about pointing out good places for lunch with a great view, what historic bakery has the best chocolate napoleons and where to get churros (nothing like churros in America -much better in Spain) which are dipped in wonderful semi-liquid chocolate. That day I had a delicious lunch with another member of the tour while sitting outside watching the throngs of people strolling along.  

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We attended a wonderful wine tasting just for our group and despite my having been to a fair share of wine tastings, this was so different as it wasn’t about tasting and figuring out what to buy but really learning so much about the wines. We were introduced to 2 wines, 1 red and 1 white (I had no idea that they even had white wine in Spain, but it comes from the northern region), had glasses of each which was a treat as these wines were far, far more expensive than any wine I would normally buy – we were told that each bottle was about 35 euros apiece which would be about $45 - $50.  We also had light tapas. After the wine tasting, a small group of us headed out to explore a neighborhood recommended to us for more tapas. It was fun to try to find the neighborhood with me practicing my Spanish (nobody else in the group that evening spoke any Spanish) and to find this one street called via Cava Baja which David, our Australian back-up guide,  had told us has many places for tapas.  The area was non-touristy and it was nice to feel like one of the locals. We ended up at a typical tapas place, with pictures of bull fighters, bulls, wonderful tapas and what people in Spain pronounce, “vermoot” – this is red vermouth from a dispenser. I had never tried vermouth before and it was delicious with the dinner.  We headed back to the hotel and as usual got back around 11:30 pm/just before midnight.

 

The next day, we had a tour of several works of art at Museo del Prado and Museo Reina Sofia and I was so excited to visit both museums.   I was blown away by the Museo del Prado and by one particular work of art at Museo Reina Sofia.   My “Wow” moment at Museo del Prado was when we walked into a room and I was surrounded by El Greco paintings. It was incredible and brought tears to my eyes.  El Greco was a painter from Greece whose name was too difficult for the Spaniards to pronounce so they called him El Greco (the Greek). Here is his Greek name - Doménikos Theotokópoulos – just rolls off your tongue! 

 

I was greatly moved when at Museo Reina Sofia, our group saw Guernica by Pablo Picasso.   Our Rick Steves guide would later explain what happened in Guernica that drove Picasso to paint this. During the Spanish Civil War in Spain, unlike our Civil War in America where it was pretty much divided between the north and south, in Spain, one didn’t know if a neighbor was a Republican (the more liberal party) or a Nationalist (the more conservative party). General Franco hated the Nationalists. He agreed to let Adolph Hitler test their bombs on the town of Guernica which is in northern Spain in the Basque area of Spain.  They first fire bombed all the bridges so the people in Guernica would not be able to escape and then they fire bombed the houses, people, and the countryside.  Picasso paints the horrors – a dead child, his mother wailing, a horse with a fractured leg, a woman trying to escape through a window only to go further into the fiery home. According to our guide, for Spaniards, it is as if Guernica happened yesterday.  After seeing Guernica, we had a relaxing long lunch, and a member of the group and I went back on our own to Museo del Prado as we had an all-day ticket.  We separated so we could see whatever each of us wanted to see. So glad we decided to go back to the museum. That evening we stopped for wonderful churros and chocolate.  We had the best churros and chocolate ever!