A Sunday in Madrid

Many of the museums in Madrid are free on Sunday. It is hard for me to resist walking all over the city bagging some new musuems. Since this is our third visit to Madrid, we are getting towards the bottom of the Top Ten.

• Cerralbo Museum: a rather rare "house museum" whose whole content is more or less late-19th-century-intact . Having recently finished David Graeber's The Dawn of Everything, I'm determined to figure out the source of such conspicuous wealth. Since the Marques Cerralbo's fortune mostly came from inheritance, and "Moctezuma" is in one of the ancestor's names, I conclude the collection owes its origin in the gold and silver from the new world.
• Lázaro Galdiano Museum: another house museum, but really more museum than house. Since Lázaro Galdiano owes much of his fortune to his Argentinian wife, this collection is also built on wealth injection from the new world.
• Museum of the Old Chamberí Metro Station: always free, should have made reservations. The station was closed in 1966 because the platform could not be lengthened when the Madrid metro expanded. The station has been outfitted to a 1920s look. Since the tracks remained where they are, every few minutes the metro cars came by, full of riders from 2022, bringing the future to us, emersed 100 years back.

Along the way we checked off the Rastro Market and Temple of Debod. We always seem to keep ourselves extremely busy in Madrid.

Our Saturday afternoon flight from Palma to Madrid passed directly over Valencia and I got a great view down to the Albufera.

After checking-in to our hotel we took a stroll up to Plaza Mayor and took a selfie. It's good to be back in Madrid!

Sunday morning we saw some cyclists - are we still in Mallorca? - as we passed through Plaza Mayor on our way to Museo Cerralbo.

The Rastro flea market.

And we walked by the Royal Palace in clear, sunny skies. Yes!

The Museo Cerralbo is, more or less, the original 19th century home of the 17th Marquis of Cerralbo with a ballroom,

...carrom table,

...and glass chandeliers from Murano, Venice. And more!

There were many tourists, on foot, on bikes, on class trips, at the so-called Templo Egypto (aka Temple of Debod).

We waited in line for almost an hour for a Spanish-only tour of the Museum of the Old (ca. 1922) Chamberí Metro Station. Very cool!

I shot this very short video as a metro train from 2022 went by us who were standing in 1922. Time travel?

Another musuem in an old mansion, the Museo Lazaro Galdiano, exceeded our expectations. Lazaro Galdiano was a collector. My favorite piece was this painting, The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian, with a young Sebastian. Very moving.

This portrait of Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda by Federico de Madrazo from 1857 is a masterpiece.

La Vision de Tondal by El Bosco

The Crowning with Thorns by El Bosco

Beautiful ceilings commissioned by Lazaro Galdiano.This one alludes to The Maids of Honor by Velázquez.

And not just cherbus.

Some public art near the National Archaeological Museum.

Post Office.

The rooftop terrace of the local cultural center.

The "back" entrance of Museo Reina Sofía.