Friday, May 6th
The Kesslers headed off for a day of touring on their own while Bob, Tosh and I caught the Metro to the Fundacion Lazaro Galdiano Museum in an up-scale section of Madrid north of our hotel. In what used to be his turn-of-the-last-century mansion is now a modern museum that houses thousands of items from decorative armor, fabrics going back centuries, watches, silver, coins, crystal, bronzes, and paintings. Most of the fancy display cabinets had heavy pull-out drawer with yet more items. The mind boggled. Unlike the warm and friendly feel of don Enrique's house that we saw yesterday, however, this one was coldly professional. It had an uninviting feel to it, and both Bob and I felt as if the attendants were hovering to make sure we didn't try to smash one of the glass cases and dash off with something.
Walking back to the Metro from the museum, we looked at out-door artwork under an overpass. (What a neat way to discourage graffiti.) I asked a reluctant Bob to record some of it since the stuffy attendants in the Galdiano wouldn't let us take a single photo.
In the afternoon, Bob returned to the hotel for a much-needed nap while Tosh and I bravely proceeded to visit one last museum, the Thyssen-Bornemsiza, known locally as the TEE-sun. It's named after a wealthy collector and his wife (a former Miss Spain) who sold his collection to the state for $350 million. After his death, she went right on collecting, and hers is displayed in separate lettered galleries as opposed to their numbered ones. This was no dumb blond.
Rick Steves writes of the museum, “It's basically minor works by major artists and major works by minor artists,” and that was our impression. However, it was interesting to trace the history of western art from the 13th Century to the modern period, even if what you saw was only one or two not-so-good and usually early works by such artists as Lucas Cranach, Durer, Caravaggio (photo only since the one original was on loan), Hals, Titan, Van Gogh, Picasso, Sargent, Hopper, Monet, etc. Then Tosh and I had one last ice cream cone on Calle de Alcala before heading back for some down time before dinner.
