Day 52 – 30 August 2023 – Madrid, Spain

A sleep in this morning, we are not out for breakfast until 8.30am & afterwards I had to catch up with some paying bills (bills don’t go on holidays unfortunately) & the like plus some sorting out of what we are doing next. Afterwards we walked around 200 metres to the nearby Museo Lazaro Galdiano.

The museum is in the former mansion of Lazaro Galdiano, a former very successful magazine & newspaper publisher in Spain.  He built the mansion in 1903 & collected exceptional works of art & fine objects worthy of any national museum. He left it all to the nation upon his death in 1947.

One of the first items I liked was an exquisite bronze cat head water jug made in the 6^th century BC. This amazing house is filled with extraordinary high quality paintings from Spanish, English, Italian, Greek, German & Dutch masters. The painting of a young Jesus by Leonardo Da Vinci is exquisite. Some of the ceilings are adorned with art. The collection of fine art & objects is large, with all the display cases having large drawers underneath full of more of similar style objects. The collection is extraordinary & Tereza & I were kicked out at the 3pm closing time with a whole floor & more yet to see. If you are ever in Madrid, make the time to see this museum, it is far better than the Prada Museum.

After we were kicked out we all of a sudden felt hungry, so we stopped at the nearby Café Lamucca de Serrano for a late lunch. I had a very tasty black dough pizza with Spanish sausage, cheese & tomato with honey & walnuts. Tereza opted for the crispy chicken burger (she isn’t very adventurist), also very tasty & all more than we needed to eat. Washed down with a 3 Euro beer, what more could we want. It is amazing here, people have siesta around 3 to 6 when things open again.  There are no places to get lunch until about 3 & around 6 people sit in cafes, bars for drinks & there is no dinner until about 8. Back to the hotel as it is siesta time & everything closes for the afternoon.  Their siesta is understandable, it gets hot here.  We are starting to get accustomed to the Spanish way, at the hotel we first checked emails & started to read & we had an afternoon sleep.

After our siesta, the time is 8 pm & still light, temperature cooled down to 24C & 32 percent humidity, time for our walk on the beautiful tree lined boulevard, ah, delightful. Back at the hotel neither of us feel hungry, so we will give dinner a miss.  Another wonderful day.