Madrid in the Summer

In July last Summer I visited my family who live in Madrid. I spent a few days there so we took advantage of the time to visit some of the things that the city offers, museums, parks... everything you could see during the hot days of the Madrid Summer.

I had already visited the city many other times, with school, with my friends... but this time it was different because we really made the most of the two days we had there. I may also refer to something I did or a place I visited the previous summer.

Arrival and plans

The first day we went to Madrid from our village, Cervera de la Cañada, found in the province of Zaragoza. We were staying in my aunt's flat and we ate there. We were planning the places that we'd go visit in the two following days, we wanted to see various museums and also my aunt wanted to take us to a place that we'd never been to before on the last afternoon.

The museums we wanted to visit were the Museo Reina Sofia, as my parents had never ben, the Thyssen Museum, and the Prado Museum, in which there was a big exhibition of the works of Bosch.

First visit

That same afternoon we decided to go to the Thyssen Museum. We saw all the permanent exhibitions and also one of Caillebotte. It consisted of different canvases with drawings of gardens and nature, it was a very lively and pleasant exhibition.

The painter was a wealthy man who dedicated his life to his gardens, and this is certainly reflected in his works, although you can also see paintings of some of the streets of Paris. He supported other Impressionist painters such as Monet who didn't have as much money as him.

This museum has a big permanent collection, if you have time I recommend carefully perusing all the artwork.

Day 1

This day we visited the museum Reina Sofía, we went shopping, we took a walk through Chueca and we ate in the San Antón Market.

We woke up early and they dropped us off with the car next to the Atocha Station, which I recommend seeing from the inside because it's a very pretty station. It's full of vegetation on the inside and I really liked how the palm trees contrasted with the visible iron structure of the building.

The Museo Reina Sofia puts more of a focus on modern art. There are several entrances given that the building was made bigger with an extension by Jean Nouvel, which would be the red part. The rest of the building was originally a big hospital that was located in what was then the outskirts of Madrid. We used the whole morning to walk around it, we saw the permanent exhibitions and some that were just passing through. I believe that one its most important artworks permanently displayed there is Picasso's Guernica. You must see it if you visit this museum.

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You can also find more contemporary art, many of the works are difficult to understand. However, the last time I was there, they put on an important exhibition of Dalí's works during the summer.

Something that I really liked was finding works of Neoplasticism, for example the painting of Piet Mondrian. I really value the simplicity, the whole "less is more" aesthetic, of these works and the use of basic colours.

Throughout the exhibition you can see more things other than paintings and sculptures. There are also audiovisual works, some modern, that surround you in a strange atmosphere; others that are older like the constant projection of "Un chien andalou" by Salvador Dalí and Luis Buñuel. Because of all this you can spend hours in this museum, it's impossible to get bored.

Having finished seeing the museum we left via the extension part of the building, which has a patio with a sculpture. There's also a new building in which there's a cafe under the auditorium stands, and even a book shop.

We went to eat at a restaurant that they'd recommended to us. After that we went to the shopping zone and took advantage of the sales, and we wanted to buy some things. It was unbearably hot so being inside the shops helped us endure it much better as inside it was much cooler.

When it began to cool down we went for a walk and to drink something in Chueca. It's an area in the Justicia neighbourhood and since the 80s it has become an LGBTQ+ neighbourhood. Initially it was a poor area, but now it's one of the most trendy of the city, full of colour and open-minded people. The bars and hangouts that you can visit are iconic and characteristic of the area. If you go to Madrid, don't forget to pass through there and really enjoy it.

After drinking something in Chueca it started getting late and we searched for a place to eat dinner. My aunt from Guadalajara took us to the San Anton market. It's located in Chueca and it has three floors, the second is where there are little stalls where you can go and take some tapas. We ended up getting tapas from 8 different stalls. On the third floor is the restaurant La Cocina de San Antón and at night it has a terrace where you can have cocktails.

When we finished our dinners we went for a walk through the streets of Madrid. Now it wasn't so hot, in fact it was very nice. We walked to where my other aunt lives. We arrived very tired and we went to sleep straight away.

Day 2

That day we got up promptly as we had lots to do. We went early to queue for the Prado Museum. We already had tickets, but the Bosch exhibition was so important that many, many people went. I remember walking by the Hotel Ritz before getting in the queue. It was very elegant and glamorous. It was very hot and some people in the queue had umbrellas. We could finally enter, we went to the exhibition of Bosch in the museum wing designed by the architect Rafael Moneo.

The exhibition was fantastic, everything was well explained and organised. You had to go through a series of rooms and the people were naturally spread out without too much crowding.

Almost at the end of the exhibition was the triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights, a work housed in the Prado Museum. Having seen the exhibition there was the option of going to a room where the same painting enveloped you in its environment; images of its details were enlarged and everything was projected on different walls while you were in the dark.

After completely finishing the visit, I bought a laptop cover for my Mac of the painting The Garden of Earthly Delights and I still have in on my laptop to this day.

We spent the rest of the morning seeing other areas of the museum, we ate, then carried on looking at what we'd missed.

In the afternoon we went to have something in the Círculo de Bellas Artes. It's a very pretty place where they also have exhibitions. Our initial thinking was that we'd go up to the terrace where you can see the whole of Madrid, but it was closed. I had already gone up there the previous year on a day when it was terribly hot.

That being said, the lower part is also worth seeing as it has lovely drawings on the ceiling and very good service.

For the evening they'd prepared for us a surprise, a picnic in the Parque del Tío Pío, popularly known as Parque de las Siete Tetas, which has one of the best views of the city of Madrid. It consists of seven mounds that were generated in an industrial era with broken ceramic waste from a factory that was there in the place. The views of Madrid from there are beautiful and it is definitely a place you must go when visiting the city.

We saw everything together there at sunset and it was definitely a good way to end the trip.

More photos of the trip

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