Sept. 17, 2014 So here we are in Madrid after so many years, and nothing looks the way I remembered. Super highway and ferocious traffic in from the airport, for instance. When I worked for the paper in Paris we came down here so often that we developed a circle of friends here and also in Seville, all of them gone now. We checked into the hotel and Peggy just wanted to rest, and try to recover from the all night plane ride, so I went out onto the Gran Via alone and walked along and the Madrid architecture and buildings surprised me--they seemed so different from the rest of Europe. I was looking for a cafe and turned into a walking street, the Calle Montera, and the first cafe I saw was a McDonald's. I would sooner have died than sit down there, but two or three doors further on was a tapas bar with tables outside. Ordering, I brought forth almost all that is left of my Spanish, which may have been a mistake as the girl began to talk to me, and I understood very little of what she said. But she brought me a cafe con leche, one of the best I've ever tasted, and a croissant, also very fine, and I sat and looked at the buildings all around and at the people strolling by, and sipped my coffee and had one of those moments of epiphany that comes once in a while, and thought: there is no place in the world I would rather be right now than here in Madrid at this table drinking this coffee.
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Only two days in Madrid--we leave for the airport in 40 minutes--not enough, but it will still be here the next time, if we still are. Just got back from the Prado. In the past what turned me on the most were Ribera's paintings of old, old men, which he always identified as one saint or another, which is how in that century he got away with painting them; plus a portrait from about 1650 that we found on an obscure hallway identified as the work of "Anonimo Español." How could the name of a painter of such a gorgeous portrait be totally lost? This is a question posed often enough by every artist in every art, posed often about himself and often fearfully. I looked for Anonimo today but did not find him, and the Riberas did not touch me much although although I liked them well enough, liked the Goyas, Velasquezes, Tintorettos etc. also. I go to museums mostly for those moments when you turn a corner and see something and your reaction is "goddam, look at that!" Today the Zurbarans did that for me. I had hardly ever looked at his stuff in the past. But a few years ago a friend of ours who owned a Zurbaran, had her house burn down, her Zurbaran with it. So his paintings today were, to me, somewhat personal. Who knows what will thrill me the next time? That's why one goes back to museums. The experience is different every time.
Yesterday we went into the Thyssen museum, which is just across the street. I went in there many years ago when it had just opened. I was alone that time and afterward kept telling Peggy how great it was. Yesterday it didn't please either of us very much. Too many rooms from 1500 or before. It took forever to get to anything else, and in many of the rooms ahead many of the paintings were out on loan. Other impressions of Madrid in 2014: One eats beautifully here. In the past one often didn't. Every restaurant we went into pleased us, though we missed Botin's, which we had counted on for it's famous roast suckling pig. Most likely Madrideños consider Botin's a tourist trap and perhaps it is, meaning that tourists have heard of it and go there in great numbers. But you do eat beautifully there, or at least you used to. And their specialty you almost can't get anywhere else. But last night the only table available was at 11:30 PM. So Botin's will have to wait for next time. And Madrid traffic is horrendous. It didn't used to be. Spain may be suffering economically at this time, but not everybody. On the 4-lane grand boulevards cars go by almost bumper to bumper at 40 mph or more, and there are fences up and down every sidewalk so pedestrians can cross only at the corners. |
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