Getting There - Aneel's Travelogue

This morning, we went on a self-guided walking tour of Madrid. It ended up covering a lot of the things we'd wandered past last night, but it was neat to see them in the sunlight and to read about their history. We accidentally had lunch at the Mercado de San Miguel (where we ate last night). The plan was just to stop in for a quick snack, but one snack led to another and before you know it, we'd lunched.

The afternoon was spent in the Prado museum. They have a huge collection of paintings, including some great ones by Hieronymus Bosch (The Garden of Earthly Delights) and Pieter Bruegel the Elder (The Triumph of Death). There were also some impressive Velasquez and El Greco works. Oddly, when we thought we were done, we saw a postcard in the gift shop of a really pretty canvas that we sought out. It was really well done, with exquisite rendering of shiny satin, and nearby there was a veiled bust that did an amazing job of making marble look like transparent fabric.

Between the walking on the tour and the walking in the Prado (note to self: don't schedule walking before museums), we were pretty tired, so we stopped by our first chain Spanish fast food joint, a Cervecería 100 Montaditos. A montadito is a small sandwich, and the idea of this place is that each tiny sandwich is 1 euro and you order a bunch of different ones. Simple enough formula, but surprisingly tasty.

For a change of place, we had some really good Indian food for dinner.