Day in Madrid

My day in Madrid was a day on my feet. Beatriz and I had agreed we would visit the Prado but needed to queue for tickets so arrived early, a good decision as it turned out. By the time we had queued, passed time with a New York family en route to an Indian wedding in Barcelona, entered and had our fill of Velazquez, Goya, El Greco, Bosch and others - and of the guided groups and individuals crowding out the rooms of 'must see' pieces - it was early afternoon. Lunch set us up for the rest of the day walking the city: to the station for tickets for Beatriz and questions about bikes on trains for me for my return trip (questions never asked as after thirty minutes we had not reached the top of their ticketed queuing system with its peculiar approach to prioritisation); a visit to a more sunny and more crowded Retiro than yesterday; and finally a walk to the Plaza Mayor, cathedral and Royal Palace.

Cibeles Fountain

Retiro Park

Royal Palace 

Alcalá Gate - from Walls of 18th Century 

We finished walking back along the Grand Via as night was falling and as lamps and adverts were lighting up the showcase architecture of its buildings. I wanted to drink at the Chicote bar, visited by Lee and described as '…more like a private room than a public tavern.' It later became, in his words, a '...prophylactic night spot …for tourists.' and today is an establishment that draws on its 1930s heritage and that later popularity with black and white photographs of the great and the good above the bar. 

I sipped my cocktail in a place in which Lee had drunk (although I am pretty sure cocktails were not on the menu in his day) looking at the wide range of spirits adorning the shelves and the old-style but affluent surroundings. It seemed to me that this bar was synonymous with the Spain I was finding and trying to compare to Lee's: ninety years on, Chicote's was now updated - more prosperous, more polished and more glamorous - and was playing to a different audience, one that was richer and whose horizons were widened from the purely local to the more cosmopolitan. I may have been present in Lee's location but I was not present in his world and it was in no way providing a window into his past. This was the thought that passed through my mind as I sat at the bar, drink in hand, a thought that if dwelt upon might undermine the motivation behind my journey. So instead, I pushed it aside and focused on enjoying my surroundings and my drink.

Tomorrow I leave Madrid and head to Toledo.