Stormy weather

This blip is SOOC except for cropping -- no drama filters needed! I had a hard time choosing -- my blip could jusy as easily have been this photo, quickly grabbed as the wind gusted a sudden rain shower across the street.

We were more organized today. We managed to be up not too long after 9 o'clock, and headed straight for the Prado, arriving shortly after 10, when it opens. We efficiently bought tickets from the machines outside and walked straight in, no queues.

You can't possibly see all of a vast museum like the Prado in one visit. We had made a rough plan, so we managed to see most of what we wanted. By 1:30 we were all Velazquez-ed, Zurbaran-ed, Murillo-ed and Goya-ed out. I didn't know much about Spanish painting and it was interesting to see how distinctive it is. Since starting to blip I find I pay much more attention to composition, and the composition and lighting in many of these paintings is just stunning.

Apart from being obsessed with religion and royalty (who were after all the only people who could afford them), they seemed to have a fixation with luxury fabrics, especially Zurbaran. In one blurb, I read that the masters sometimes designed the general lines of paintings, painted the faces, and then left their droves of assistants the boring job of painting the fabrics and backgrounds. We finished the visit with Goya's black paintings, which are all gathered in one room. Very strange, surreal, and modern in style and feeling.

After that, it was a case of another day, another trendy tapas bar. We had lunch at Catalan chef Sergi Arola's bar, punningly called Vi Cool (the V being pronounced B in Catalan/Spanish). The tapas weren't as inventive as the ones at Estado Puro, but they were elegantly presented and very good. The prawns were some of the best I've ever had, and we couldn't get enough of the goat's cheese fondue that was served with the albóndigas.

This led to an afternoon doing not very much. We headed out for a walk towards the royal palace in the early evening, and it turned out just like yesterday evening: sunshine followed by a sudden shower of rain that forced us to take brief refuge in a cafe. The light was very dramatic, so I couldn't resist this blip of the cathedral against a stormy sky. It's opposite the palace, which Chamaeleo blipped just a week ago. The rain soon stopped, and we headed back via the Mercado de San Miguel, where we paused for a glass of wine and some jamón before going home. It was crowded, but not nearly as packed as it was when we passed through on Saturday evening.