The New Year in Madrid

We arrived back in Madrid on New Year's Eve. We gathered provisions and stayed in to ring in the new year. We had some champagne and grapes - the local good luck custom. You have to eat 12 grapes, 1 grape for every dong of the clock at midnight. Afterwards we went out on the terrace of the apartment to watch for fireworks. On the horizon all around us, small fireworks shows were going off. They must not have the same fireworks laws in Madrid as we have because the fireworks were everywhere. It was thrilling to see so many shows going on at once.


On the 1st we took a day to rest up and wash our clothes since everything was closed anyway. We were running out of clean clothes so we washed a load in the apartment. Julie had advised us that dryers are not common in Spain and that everyone hangs their laundry out to dry on a line. We hung our clothes on a line that went out from our bathroom window. It was kind of a fun adventure. It reminded me of hanging laundry out with my grandmother when I was a kid. It made me want to put up a line in our backyard.

The next day we hit some museums. First we went to the Reina Sofia where they have a great collection of 20th century art. We saw Guernica by Picasso!


It was amazinging big. I had no idea. They also had photographs of the painting in process as well as other paintings he had completed around the same time where you can tell he is working out certain elemnents of the composition.


We had a yummy lunch of calamari sandwiches and cervezas in a bustling counter cafe.

Then we walked up the Paseo del Prado, which is a big beautiful street. We had heard a rumour that you could get into the Prado museum for free at 6. It was about that time when we walked past the museum and saw a long line. We got in free! We spent 2 hours going all over the museum seeing tons of Goya paintings. The highlight was seeing Hieronymus Bosch's painting The Garden of Earthly Delights.


It is such a detailed painting and you get that so much more when you are standing in front of the original. The colors were so striking and beautiful. Those pink flower like things in the middle panel really pop out at you. Afterward we wandered around looking at all manner of paintings depicting the deaths of saints. They finally ran us all out at 8 PM.

You can see all of the trip pictures here.