Photos from Granada and the Alhambra...

312 photos later...Madrid, Toledo and Granada are conquered!
Madrid was okay. It would be pretty difficult to top Barcelona right away and it certainly doesn't help that they're very different cities. Barcelona is to Madrid as Melbourne is to Sydney. However...a jolly time was had, we hooked up with Ally's mum, brother and sister in law at our apartment (this after a furious, bold, mapless and backpacked search through inner city Madrid and a little help from a small Spanish man with a third eye for directions (I'll post the comic soon).

We really didn't spend much time there using it mostly as a 3 night stopover for a visit to The Prado (the definite highlight), as well as a day trip to Toledo.

After seeing Picassos' 58 interpretations of Las Meninas in Barcelona...seeing the actual Velázquez at the Prado was pretty amazing. Velázquez's studies of the Bufon that circled the room were also excellent.

Here is a statue of him -


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A day of heavy religious iconography is as impressive as it is exhausting but wandering the endless halls and seeing some famous names and works of art that you have only ever seen in your art theory classes 10 years ago is always a thrill. Heironymous Bosch's Garden Of Earthly Delights...(my year 12 angsty teen art school love!) was stunning. Years ahead of it's time and surely put together over a fine heady, slightly mouldy cheese platter.

Carravagio, Rubens, Van De Weyden, Raphael were others to name a small few. Sadly missed the collection of Goya but you always have to have something to come back too (we're also thinking we can catch up with him at The Louvre).

In the meantime here is a statue of him -




The Prado has just opened a new wing...and to celebrate they were allowing free entry to all who wanted in.
This lucky fellow and his special lady friends dressed up for the occassion.



The line for entry. This was to the main entrance...there were three or four other lines to different entrances around the gallery all of a similar length. I enjoy a good queue and 2 hours of it later we were IN!



After 2 hours of queueing memorys to last a lifetime and 3 hours being assaulted by images of the crucifiction at every turn a man's belly needs a man's meal. So because i'm an adult and i can make adult decisions we ate. And boy did we eat.

Our heroes...belly's full. Hearts proud.




But enough about food...Toledo's highlights included beer -
Sitting in the sun beside something that was built in the 12th Century with a mid morning cervasa, more alleyways (always a highlight for those of us who live in melbourne (collins st joining flinders lane doesn't quite do a good lane justice), Spanish Baroque architecture up the yin yang (Nothing like reverance through "i want it all and then i want it all in gold"), The region of La Mancha home of Cervantes and El Greco spent a number of years of his life in Toledo itself. Also Toledo is famed for it's steel production...especially swords. Because of this I was pretty excited...by now anyone worth their salt should know what is best in life. And we should all know the secret riddle of steel shouldn't we?*

But because it's late and as it turns out Toledo wasn't a factual history of Conan's adventures here is Toledo in photo form -










* For those who aren't Cimmerian. Here is the riddle of steel as told by Conan's father...
"Fire and Wind come from the Sky, from the Gods of the Sky.
But your God is Crom, and he lives in the Earth.

Once Giants lived in the Earth, Conan,
and in the darkness of chaos, they fooled Crom,
and took from him the enigma of Steel.

Crom was angered and the Earth shook,
and Fire and Wind struck down these giants,
and threw their bodies onto the waters.

But in their rage,
the Gods forgot the secret of Steel
and left it on the battlefield.

And we who found it, are just men,
Not Gods, Not Giants, just men.

The Secret of Steel had always carried with it a mystery,
you must learn its riddle Conan, you must learn its discipline.

For no one, no one, on this earth can you trust,
not men, not women, not beasts.

*lifts sword*, this you can trust!"