Madrid: The Museums
7:00 AMIf you are traveling to Spain and thinking about skipping Madrid, I have two reasons that you need to reconsider: the Museo del Prado and the Centro de Arte Reina Sofia. Literally you can spend the majority of a day in each (and we did in the Museo del Prado!), but I wanted to hit some of the main highlights to both sway you to make these stops and help you prioritize if you are shorter on time.
The Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia
Admission: 8 Euro
Free Tuesdays through Friday from 7pm to 9 pm
This is the modern art museum for Madrid, and the major highlight is Picasso's "Guernica". Absolutely not to be missed. Head to room 206 and this massive painting takes up the entire room. Surrounding rooms show initial drafts and versions which are completely fascinating in themselves. You can literally see Picasso's thought process as he changes the mouth of the horse or the position of an arm.
via |
You may have seen "Guernica" in a textbook, but you cannot appreciate the scale of it until you see it in person like this. It is completely overwhelming and desperate and breathtaking. via |
Museo Del Prado
Admission: 14 Euro
Free Admission Monday through Saturday from 6pm to 8pm
Ok I have to admit that I am not the biggest modern art enthusiast so I went to the free after hours museum open house at the Reina Sofia. It was the perfect amount of time to see "Guernica" and a good assortment of Dali, Miro, and various others. But I absolutely cannot imagine trying to see the Museo Del Prado in 2 hours so admission is definitely worth the 14 Euro. You need to spend at minimum 4 hours there to get a good appreciation, and then you would just be skimming the surface. Not to be missed in the Museo Del Prado are:
"Saturn Devouring His Son" by Francisco Goya via |
"Las Meninas" by Velazquez via |
small section from "Garden of Earthly Delight" by Heironymous Bosch via |
"Virgen and Child Surrounded by Angels" by Jean Fouquet via |
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