I am so glad that I came back to Madrid. I could have left Spain believing that Madrid was a city that had little to offer. But I would have been wrong.

Arriving in the city at midday, I waited only long enough to ensure my luggage was secure before heading out. I had a target. Guernica. I wanted to see Pablo Picasso's masterpiece. So I made a beeline for the Reina Sofia Museum. This is a Museum of Modern Art unlike the Prado which is dedicated to the older masterpieces and features great painters such as Goya and Valesquez (is that how it is spelled?).

The museum is amazing very clean lines and very modern, as you would expect given its content. And easy to navigate. I very quickly found the Picasso exhibits and was able to spend time moving from one to the other getting a feel for his work. And then finally, there it was. A huge work not only in terms of artistic achievement and subject, but also in sheer physical size. I spent a lot of time moving back and forth, studying the elements. Each time I found more and more. And I also found that some of the elements were very familiar to me from the paintings that I had already seen in the gallery. The most notable for me, because it had so moved me as a small painting, was Mother with a Dead Child. It is heartbreaking.

I spent a couple of hours there, I would have liked more time, but, well...

Back out on the street, after a wonderful crusty roll filled with a tuna and tomato salad (Spanish do tuna really well), I knew the Prado was near by and so set off on foot. What I discovered was a Madrid I had not seen on my previous visits. The beautiful wide streets, the statuary, the fountains both huge and majestic and small interplays of water and stone. I saw the Botanic Gardens, all dressed for the last days of autumn. I saw the amazing buildings (many of them banks). I visited the Bibliotecque Nationale which was quiet and refelective and beautiful, in contrast to the Prado which was manic. The Prado was showing a collection from The Hermitage in Amsterdam and people were queueing for hours to get in. Needless to say I didn't get to go into the Prado - I simply didn't have time.

I walked and walked. I saw so much of Madrid. The shopping was extreme. I stood on an intersection and the shops at each corner were Jimmy Choo, Louis Vuitton and Tiffany's. But the shop on the fourth corner was closed and abandoned. Because everywhere in Madrid and in Spain you can see the effects of the economic crisis. More about that in another post.