out of life and mind

"Madrid, this fit capital of a country of anomalies, is not even a city or Cuidad; it is only the chief of villas; It has no Cathedral, no bishop; it rises with a cluster of conical, blue, Flemish looking spires, which, resembling fire extinguishers, are no bad types for a town where climate and policy alike conspire to put out life and mind."

Madrid is much changed trom the city of the 1830's that Richard Ford was so wittily disparaging about in his Handbook to Spain (one of the first and best travel guides to be written). Though it still has no great Cathedral to speak of, it is now a rrodern bustling city, home to three of the greatest art collections in Europe, and a population of five million that is upbeat and out late. During the day the old heart of the city with its narrow alleys and shady plazas, encrusted with restaurant, bar and cafe moves to a steady, sleepy, rhythm punctuated by the shrill call of the car horn.

The Madrilenos go about their daily chores in the time they find between coffee and cigarettes, as workmen hose down the streets and American tourists wander in and out of "really neat" bars where Hemingway once had a beer. At night however, this lazy centre throbs as its arteries fill with the young of the city wandering from one tapas bar to another, catching up with the football score and ending after a little clubbing at the Choclateria San Gines in the early morning for chocolate con churros.

The Plaza Mayor, designed for Felipe II finished in 1916, once scene to Inquisitions, bull-fighting and coronations, now forms the backdrop to expensive cafes, music concerts, and is the focus of the many fiestas throughout the year, not to mention the rampant philately on Sundays. With its beautifully colonaded buildings, of which the Casa Panaderia is notable for its kitchness, the Plaza Mayor is as good a place as any to start exploring the surrounding streets of the old town, and to look for room at the fifty or so hotels, and pensiones in the area.

At the eastern edge of the old town stretching from the Plaza de Cibeles to the train station at Atocha, runs the Paseo del Prado on and just off of which are the three main art galleries of Madrid. The Museo Thyssen:Bornemisze located in an old palacio, is home to one of the world's most extensive art collections, with the works of almost every major artist from Duccio to Rothko. Once a private collection, it was bought in its entirety, from Baron Thyssen, by Spain at the equivalent of £230 million. To the south of the Paseo del Prado, in a former hospital, is the Centro de Arte Reina Sofia housing the Modern Spanish Art Collection. This is a vast and initially impressive museum containing many great works including Picasso's Guernica, however, the original layout of the building has not lent itself easily to the spatial need of a modern gallery, and it can became tiringly confusing as you negotiate its many rooms and levels.

"Happy the man who sees this glorious assemblage, in this the finest gallery in the world" - writing of the Museo del Prado this was praise indeed after the highly critical response to what else Madrid had to offer, and one of the few aspects which arguably remains unchanged. The Prado is one of the World's great Art museums, though nowhere near as large as either the Louvre of Paris or the National of London, the depth and brilliance of its collection, where every painting seems a masterpiece, is truly breathtaking. Begun under Charles V and developed through the further patronage of Philip II and Philip IV, the collcction has been almost perfectly preserved due to the dry climate, though Richard Ford professed that it was more to do with the ignorance of the Spanish in letting them collect mud and dust, which inadvertently kept them in alomost original condition.

"The foreigner crosses the Pyrenees too weary of the bore, commonnplace, and uniformity of ultra-civilization in order to see something new and un-European; he hopes to find again in Spain . . . all that has been lost and forgotten elsewhere."

Nowhere more so than in the Prado are these hopes fulfilled, for in the paintings of Murillo, Ribere, Velazquez, El Greco, Zurbaran and Goya there is an earthy honesty unconcerned with self and the superficial, or as Ford said of Velazquez, 'in a word, Nature was his guide, truth his object, and man his model; no virgin ever descended into his studio, no cherubs ever hovered round his pallete, no saint came down from heaven to sit for his portrait." It is a gritty realism that pervades Spanish society and manifests itself in the often dark and emotively psychological subjects depicted. These museums are a must but trying to cover every one in a day will drive you "out of life and mind".

"The summer Scirocco blights vegetation and by excitirly a knife handling populatlon, fills hospitals with wounded and prisons with murderers."

With this in mind I chose to visit Spain through April and May, though the above is no longer the norm, partly because the Madrilenos have decamped for the summer months to cooler Northern Spain, it is worthwhile missing out Madrid in it's heat and with the hordes of tourists that necessarily follow. With flights at under £100 return and accommodation (I stayed at the Hostal Alonso c/de Espoz y Mina 17) at around £7.00 a night you don't have to be rich to escape the "uniformity of ultra civilization". Richard Fords Handbook to Spain is an amusingly well written Guide worth reading, though it is perhaps better to take lightly many of his views.

"Those who the soonest shake the dust off their feet and remain the shortest time at Madrid, will probalbly remember It with most satisfacion."

Modern-day Madrid is worthy of a far longer stay. + Alisdair Rennie

Alisdair Rennie spent 2 months in Madrid on The Richard Ford Travel Scholarship from the Royal Academy. All of the above quotes taken from "Handbook For Spain" 1841 by Richard Ford.- Centaur Press.