Good morning everyone. It's Thursday in Madrid, and we are getting ready to catch a train to Valencia. There is a new ultra-fast train service between Valencia and Madrid that gets you there in about 90 minutes, so we thought we check out the city, have a paella in its ancestral home, and bounce back to Madrid on Thursday evening. At least that's the plan. Hopefully it will work out.
Today we decided to go visit the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum. As I mentioned in my last post, it is directly across the street from our hotel, so arriving there was as easy as walking out the front door and up the street just a bit.
This museum was founded to house the art collection of Baron Thyssen-Bornemisza, who was one of the wealthiest people in Europe until his death in 2002. Here is the old boy's portrait, by Lucien Freud, nephew of Sigmund:
Aesthetically, this is one of the most pleasant museums I have ever been in. The walls are painted a soothing salmon pink color, and the art is very well spaced.
I never got the feel that we were crowded. There are some very exceptional paintings, many by artists that I had never heard of before. One painting that everyone has probably seen seems to stand above the rest: Picasso's Harlequin with a Mirror. This photo is from the museum's website; they don't allow photography by visitors:
The collection is not quite as daunting as that at the Prado, and the way it is displayed is also a great bonus. Here are a couple of other painitings we especially enjoyed, one by Edward Hopper, the other by Van Gogh:
Many of you know that I lived in Madrid for a year when I was in college. The director of our program was from the Asturias region in the north of Spain, and he loved to go to a place called Casa Mingo, which is a very old restaurant (founded in 1888) that serves little else but roast chicken and hard cider, both of which are specialities of Asturias. We probably went there three or four times when I was here lo those many years ago, and I had been itching to go back, so last night Cath and I caught a cab and headed over to Casa Mingo. We arrived a bit on the early side (there were only two other diners in the whole place when we got there). We ordered up chicken, cider, some green salad, and a tortilla espanola, which is an egg and potato omlette and nothing like the flour and corn tortillas we know and love.
It was wonderfully nostalgic to be back at this historic restaurant. I snapped a few photos so you can get the feel for it:
Time for us to head off to the train station. Valencia awaits us. Valencia is known as the region of rice because most Spanish rice is grown there, and it is the birthplace of paella, one of my favorite things to eat. So with a bit of luck we will get hold of a good, authentic paella tomorrow.
Hasta la proxima!
Jim S., reporting from Madrid
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