Today we went to the Prado Museum and Archaeological Museum of Madrid. We started off at the Prado, where photographs were not allowed. The Prado is the museum for art made before 1900 (specifically nothing modern). The Prado has extensive collections of Spanish masters Francisco de Goya, El Greco and Diego Velazquez, along with the largest collection of Rubens in the world. It is so large that to spend 30 seconds in front of each artwork at the museum would take you 27 hours. We mostly went to the rooms that contained the collection highlights, as that's about all you can do with a collection that size. Adam's favorite painting of the collection was Hieronymous Bosch's triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights, which is a 600 year old fever dream of eden and hell whose surrealist figures belong more in the 20th century than their own time. Alecia preferred a painting of a bearded woman by Jusepe de Ribera.
After this, we went on to the Archaeology Museum. This was full of artifacts from the history of Spain from prehistory to the modern day, representing the early cities, Phoenician settlers, Carthaginians, Romans, Visigoths, Moors, and Christian kings. There's also some mummies, Greek pottery, and a money exhibit. The collections take up 3 floors and a mezzanine, and we didn't get to see it all despite spending 3 hours in the museum. While the museum doesn't have as much monumental Roman things as other museums of Europe, the Moorish section is totally unique. Sadly, I didn't realize that photography was allowed, so I didn't take any in there either.
We went back to the hostel after that, as Adam was feeling a bit queasy. Alecia will probably go out more this evening, but Adam will be taking it easy.
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