The Prado's Best

After sleeping off some of our jet lag, our day's outing was to the Prado, just across the beautiful treelined Paseo del Prado from our hotel (an image of the trees is on this Wiki page).

The Prado is among the greatest western museums; its collection of European old masters is unsurpassed. Here we see Velázquez's Las Meninas, his greatest work and as such the true highlight of the Prado's collection. It hangs at one end of a large oval room with perhaps a dozen of his other portraits of Spanish royalty.

Nearly two years ago I blipped this portrait by John Singer Sargent in Boston, which pays homage to Las Meninas.

We had a wonderful time at the museum, including both lunch and afternoon tea in their spacious restaurant and cafe, in an adjoining new building.