Madrid

I took the AVE [Spain's high-speed train] from Barcelona yesterday, without incident except for the fact that I had forgotten that my rail pass is a 21-day CONTINUOUS one, not one in which I get any 21 days I like within two months. SO, I have rethought my itinerary somewhat, since I started the clock running on the trip here to Madrid. I think I will go to Andalusia this coming weekend. Cordova and Granada. Then to Sevilla for Christmas.


Then, I am thinking of training all the way to Palermo, to get my money's worth before January 2, when the pass expires. I do love to ride trains, and this way I can stop off in Rome for the night if I feel like it. Naples or Salerno too, depending on the timing. Then I think I will rent a car, as planned, and just drive around for awhile. Maybe I'll even go to Tunisia! There should be some pretty good hotel deals there, right now! When I get tired of it, I will fly back to Paris. EasyJet has cheap flights from Palermo.


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Anyway, the AVE was great: not-bad food thrown in for the $30 supplemental fee (whether you eat the food or not, you have to pay the supplement). 


Humberto (Carleton Spanish and Art professor) gave me great directions around his university-area neighborhood and instructions on riding the bus. I did that successfully to the Prado and back today. it's a dandy museum. Not too big, and full of great stuff. I concentrated on Velasquez and Goya. I will remember especially the "Ladies In Waiting"  (Meninas) for its concept (the painter is looking out from behind his easel at the viewer, who stands in the place where the king and Queen are seated to pose, unseen except for their reflection in a distant mirror). 

Philip IV had a lot of these portraits painted. Too bad he was so butt-ugly (Habsburg jaw). Michel de Foucauld had something to say about this painting in the introduction to one of his books 


The Goya "black paintings" were suitably frightening. I think I will remember especially Drowning Dog, because - except for the poor pup's head - it is completely abstract.

A pleasant surprise was the Picasso on ol09an from the Pushkin Museum (Moscow). Acrobata con Bola (Girl on a ball). It was exhibited by itself in an oval room. i got to sit in front of it for a long time, and it was worth the price of admission by itself. the note said it was his "rose" or "harlequin" period (1905).

Note the ho9rse in the middle background, and how the two figures complement each other: the man on a cube, the girl on a sphere, the child's left arm and side echoing the line of the man's left shoulder, the angular male figure and the curving female one. But above all, the color. The cloth of the "blue period" giving way to the pale rose of his undershirt and the background hills.


Tomorrow, more Goya at a church he painted with frescoes.