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| Cathedral Almudena |
After
our lovely time along the Atlantic coast, we decided to take the long way to
the Mediterranean to pay a visit to Spain’s capital city. But before that, we
made a slight (!) detour to Santillana del Mar, a small hillside village from a
different century. After walking its cobblestone roads lined with stone houses
& feasting on anchovies with olive oil and red wine at a little restaurant
called El Castillo, we continued to Madrid.
I’ve
always wondered what the Spaniards did with all the gold they had brought from
their colonies in South America. Just imagine all these conquistadors finding
new lands one after the other and bringing all the fabled treasures back home
for almost four hundred years , making Spain a global force to reckon with and
you can’t help wondering . Now I know:
They used it to make Madrid as beautiful and impressive as possible.
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| Autumn colors @ Cyrstal Palace |
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| Palacio Real |
If
I have to describe Madrid in one word, it would be ‘grand’. And overpowering.
Ok, it’s two words, but the motto in Madrid seems to be ‘more is more’. Its
boulevards, the palaces, the museums, the parks are all huge and beautiful and
built to impress. The city is so full of
artwork in some form, it’s impossible to appreciate all. Most of the buildings
and the artwork are from the Siglo de Oro (Golden Era) of Spain in 16th/17th
cc when the country was enjoying its ultimate glory. With money flowing in, the
rulers wanted to have a capital city worthy of their new prospering kingdom so
they invited some of Europe’s best artists and architects to Madrid. Artists like Velasquez, El Greco, Rubens and
Goya were soon a part of the Spanish court, creating masterpiece after
masterpiece, making Madrid exceptional. Then came the new generation geniuses
like Picasso, Miro, Gaudi and Dali. (There must be something in the Rioja to make the Spanish artists so
creative). I wish I could have seen this place at the turn of the 19th
cc.
There are a lot of things to do and a lot of things to see in Madrid, the city is full of art and monuments, restaurants and nightlife. We did our best to captures some of it. While sitting at a sunny roadside cafe, Erbil with his cerveza and I with my glass of Tinto de Verano (summer wine) , we reflected on what stood out for us:
Spaniards are among the most laid-back
and fun loving people on the planet. I noticed that while I was visiting Madrid
for business; the impression got stronger this time. Whatever their schedule is, there’s always
time for a cup of coffee and a friendly chat. The bars are full all day long
with people of all ages reading the papers, watching football or sharing a joke.
Most restaurants don’t even open before nine pm and going to dinner after ten
pm is very normal on a weekday. Life is a fiesta to be shared with friends, and
why not?
Flamenco , when done properly is truly
exceptional. Born from the gypsies of Andalusia, it’s an endless dialog between
the dancer, the singer and the musicians, accompanied with the rhythmic
clapping of the hands or palmes. The music is dramatic, the male dancers are
just the right amount of macho but what I loved most were the female dancers.
In flamenco, the woman is neither a dying swan in need of protection nor an
exotic dancer. She is powerful and passionate, both in love and in pain.
It
is an intimate experience created with only the vocals, the guitar and the body
of the dancer moving to the rhythm.
one wonders what if the Aztec gold remained where it belonged...
ReplyDeleteWhat ever was spared from Sir Drake must have been used to build Madrid, and the rest must have funded the Anglo Spanish war for years.
ReplyDeleteNe altin tasimissa adamlar!