Madrid, day two :: Museums

Getting all five of us up, dressed, fed and watered on our second day was a little rough.  Jet lag was bringing us down.  Ross and I thought a good first full day would be a museum day - walking, but not too much and the boys like art.

We started our day at the Prado museum.  Once we figured out how to turn our printed tickets into real tickets and got through security and got past the woman who was just sitting inside and thought we were gullible enough to pay her for a tour and once we found the actual entrance to the museum we were all set!

The Prado was huge.  The Prado was elbow to elbow crowded.  The Prado was full of art depicting wars, greek and roman gods, with a little bit of the Renaissance thrown in.  The Prado had a great exhibit of paintings from Francisco Goya (famous Spanish Painter) and a lot of cool stuff that Rick Steves (the PBS Travel Guy) told us to see.  Most importantly though, the Prado was full of naked ladies...and a few naked men.

We warned the boys about the naked ladies.  We were all surprised by so many statues and paintings of naked men.  The boys were very mature about the whole thing, but the museum was just so big, and after a couple of hours so hot and they were so hungry that we ended up leaving.  Ross wanted to push through and see EVERYTHING but if we didn't get some food in Elliott's stomach soon, the trip was going to be over before it started.

So, we left.

We found pizza.  It was delicious.  We each drank two coke zeros.  We were ready for more art.

The second museum of the day was the Thyssen.  It was more modern, and practically empty.  It was awesome!  At school, the boys do a program called "art smart" where each month parent volunteers come and teach them about a famous artist.  They've been doing it for years and have a pretty good knowledge of some of the big names in art.

Wyatt was able to pick out van Gogh's all on his own.  Elliott knew Lichtenstein without us telling him.  Quinn was able to notice details in landscapes of the American west as places we've been too, or at least look like places we've been too.  As a mom who loves art, it made my heart so happy to see them so interested.  We saw so many of the big names in Impressionism through more modern art like Monet and Pissaro, Hopper, Georgia O'Keefe, Rothko and Pollack.  It really was such an amazing museum and a fun place to spend a couple of hours.

Our apartment was about a 5 minute walk from the Thyssen museum so once we were finished, we headed back to rest for a bit - still so tired - before venturing out for dinner and to explore Madrid some more.

For dinner we found a very tasty (and expensive) Argentine restaurant.  The boys were brave eaters, and tried some new foods as well as mounds of french fries.  Thank heavens for french fries.  We walked off our late dinner through Plaza Mayor where we got harassed by street vendors, explored a few souvenir shops and ate some more gelato before heading back for another deep sleep.