Friday, October 16, 2015: Modern Art Today-The Centro de Arte de Reina Sophia

Today I promise the boys an easy day. Every time I have said this, unfortunately, I’ve been guilty of uttering a complete and total lie. Will today be the exception that proves the rule? Should I just go with the flow and change my name to Trump? We discuss enforcing rapid progress through art museums and focusing on the art we actually want to see. This approach presents massive difficulty for us. How would we know what we want to see until we see it? Our son moves even more slowly than we do AND he can read Spanish, eliminating our excuse, “Oh, we can’t understand the description by the artwork. Best move on.”

But first, we worry about traveling to Granada on Monday. We decide we must consult with RENFE. Examining RENFE’s website on the internet, I learn of a planned AVE track from Madrid to Granada, to be completed in 2020. Currently, no train tracks exist between Córdoba and Granada. Huh? (Ave means bird in Spanish, thus bird the flying train, causing massive jealousy on the part of my Bird, the wheelchair.)

Duly confused, after breakfast, off we go to Puerta de Atocha. Our proposed stop, Handicap Customer Service, where RENFE provides assistance for people like me getting on trains.

Our first helper, a gentleman working in the Handicap Customer Service Center, becomes so confused by the concept of an AVE train and a bus that he walks us over to the more advanced people who work in Disabled Customer Service. He ambulates most curiously. I later learn that RENFE hires the handicapped to assist the handicapped. We spend around half an hour with a woman who takes my name and enters it into a computer, we think to tell the train people to have ramps where we stop, but we’re not entirely sure that we accomplish anything in our time here. She also seems bewildered by the bus, but does tell us that the bus will be accessible at the time needed. Sometimes I think our destiny involves living  at Puerta de Atocha. Fortunately, our Airbnb lies very close to the Atocha train station. Oh well, if we fail with trains & buses, a cab from Granada to Córdoba costs €130.

Trains settled or unsettled, we begin our art museum filled day with a trip to the Centro de Arte de Reina Sophia, highly touted by Mr. Steves. We ride a most excellent external glass lift up to the fourth floor where we find a plethora of very modern art and art installations. Although we agreed and desire to walk along fairly rapidly, I can’t get Bloodroot to move. He changes his mind and decides he must see everything no matter how much we have to see today. He carefully and slowly reads about each artwork in Spanish. All reading in other languages requires unhurried, meticulous attention, regardless of your fluency level. Ignoring our near constant heckling and cajoling, Bloodroot insists we spend about an hour on the fourth floor. Ugh, children!

The curator loves film as an art form and has matched each piece with an appropriate movie. So Dalί’s The Great Masturbator stands beside the short film Un Chien Andalou (The Andalusian Dog). Why do all of these famous Spaniards title their work in French? Fortunately, Bloodroot does not insist upon watching each movie or we would have never come home! (Actually, I later learn that he already saw Un Chien Andalou a few years back.) I’m not sure I have anything really to report, except that I see nothing exceptional, actually nothing really worth seeing. Perhaps Bloodroot has a more positive experience to share. He tells me he didn’t find it too interesting. Alternatively, Keith finds this a most excellent museum floor, chiding me on my lack of sophistication. I admit, I like representational art. I loved Florence!

We travel, again via the most exotic glass elevator, down to the second floor where we push through a lot of Miróes and Dalίs. We begin to see photos and various art pieces about the Spanish Civil War, both Communist and anti-Franco posters. We walk through a lot of precursory studies done by Picasso before eventually walking into the room housing the main event, Guernica. I look at Guernica for really long time, annoying the boys. Guernica, perhaps the world’s most poignant piece of art ever, shows the world turned upside down by the Fascist bombing of a Basque market town. I take in the bull, the symbol of Spanish strength, who stands powerless before the might of modern warfare. The piece has a drawn electric lightbulb at the top, I believe to show the power of the machines, capable of generating both good and immense evil. I ponder the horse screaming in fear alongside the dead women and children. Even now, the images leap forth from the canvas, demanding an end to war, powerfully reminding us that we can easily all become “collateral damage.” I am moved.

After Guernica, we find ourselves sore and hungry. Fried. But we’ve had enough of the Reina Sofia. We make to leave but lose each other. Regrouping, we collect Bloodroot and our belongings.  We begin to look for lunch.

Foraging with the Bear, we drop in on the workers in our favorite wine store, which has conveniently just opened for the day. We explain that we seek a nice place for lunch where we can eat good food, have a glass of wine and relax. They suggest a place called La Veronica, where one of them works.

Obeying orders, we march over to La Veronica where we enjoy a wonderful fixed-price plate (€11) lunch and some wine. The modern décor welcomes us; we sit in front of a pastel-colored wall with some Warhol-inspired canvas hung on it. Refreshed and relaxed, we leave, perhaps a bit reluctantly.

But art calls us! Onward! Back to the Thyssen. Having previously enjoyed the Munch exhibit Wednesday evening, this time we visit the museum’s permanent collection. We start on the first floor, most excellent, containing lot of the 20^th century artists we like. But under the guise of complete honesty, I must admit that I sleep through most of the first floor. This disease has caused me to sleep in every museum that we have encountered, and relaxing with a glass of wine at lunch doesn’t help! Is there a prize for sleeping in every major European museum? If so, I could win!

I wake for the second floor, almost entirely given over to Spanish Impressionism. Like the Catalan Art Museum, we see artists unknown to us who painted in the Impressionist manner. We love it! We so embrace breaking out of the Monet, Manet, Renoir circle. We spend a delightful afternoon surrounded by the art of Spain. Far too early, the museum closes.

We leave around closing time knowing we have one more Madrid thing to see. We roll over to Charles III’s Botanic Gardens, neighboring the Prado. Let in gratis as we haven’t much time, we learn that the park currently closes at seven.

The tree filled park contains lots and lots of dahlias, blooming in every hue. Some plants bear blossoms in more than one color. Walkways surround squares of plantings. Bloodroot investigates Bloodroot items, unknown to his parental units, while Keith and I check out whole aisles of dahlias.

A young man, probably aged two, drives a plastic motorcycle helter-skelter, careening right toward me. His youth allows him decadent speed without paying the slightest bit of attention to what may be in his way. Full speed, kamikaze-like, he approaches Bird and me. I shudder in mock horror. “Hola,” I say. Terrified of a talking woman in a wheelchair, he stops dead in his tracks. The kid backs his motorcycle right into a dahlia bed. Recovering, he charges down one garden lane, then another, much to the annoyance of the two adults attempting to supervise him. He’s very cute. His keepers quickly leave off their exasperation and join in laughing with him.  

We enjoy the gardens for perhaps half an hour.  Far too soon, it’s 6:45PM and a guard begins officiously blowing his whistle to chase everyone out of the garden. Bloodroot, being Bloodroot, finds another exit that he wants us to take, directing us to go to the end of the garden to come out near our house. After providing directions, Bloodroot capitalizes on the opportunity to leave us. He wanders off up some stairs, seeking a palace or something. We encounter the whistleblowing maniac, who, waving violently, sends us in the opposite direction, going back past where Bloodroot abandoned us. We stop to wait for Bloodroot, bringing about furious arm gesticulating and whistleblowing on the part of the guard. I shout, ”Mi hijo viene.” But to no avail. I repeat, “Hijo, hijo, hijo,” pointing behind the guard. (Of course hijo, hijo, hijo, [iho, iho, iho] can begin to sound like a donkey braying.) The red-faced man continues to blow his whistle and wave his arms. His arms begin to make full circles around his body. Puffing, spinning and blowing on his whistle, he resembles a demented windmill. I expect his arms to fly off at any minute, like a cartoon person. Finally, he turns around, sees Bloodroot, and lets us regroup. We leave the gardens highly amused.

We head for home, stopping first to gather groceries. The boys create another fantastic meal. We rejoice in having an Airbnb with a kitchen instead of the non-food monstrosities that caterers force on you, even if we need three elevator rides to get all my cripple crap up to our flat.

Thursday, October 15, 2015 Holy Toledo!

Today we visit Toledo, Holy Toledo to be exact. Rolling over to Puerta de Atocha, we catch the 9:20 train out to Toledo. As cripples, we must always be one-half hour early for any ride. RENFE has a whole contingent of people delegated to loading disabled people onto their trains. (Disabled means those of us who can’t ascend the three steep steps from the platform to the train car level.)  The RENFE workers have cell phones and call ahead to your next destination. When you arrive, people at that station unload you, again via battery powered lifts (rampa).

Today, our tickets give us row six. RENFE uses their lift to load me on the train, Keith helps me walk halfway down the train car and Bloodroot makes my left leg move. I’m happy because we find and sit in the correct seats, unfortunately not a common occurrence for us.

In one half-hour, we travel forty-five miles south-west to arrive in Toledo, a walled medieval city built upon a hill. The train drops us off somewhat far from the old city ─unusual for Western Europe─in a beautiful Moorish-inspired train station situated in a plain below the towering Toledo.

We follow the crowd to the lovely accessible city bus, which kneels, not quite all the way, but low enough that the boys can bump Bird and me aboard. The delightfully strong bus motor drives us across the plain, over the Tagus River, through ancient gates up a frighteningly steep hill to the old center of the fortified city. The boys’ muscles rejoice in relaxing, at least for the moment, as the bus loudly powers a few tons of steel up a 30-degree incline. No pushing Bird and me to summit a big, daunting hill.

Exiting the bus at Plaza de Zocodover, Bloodroot and Keith take turns pushing me up and down the steep hills found in the city’s center. Our journey, a true workout, conquers elevations that vary considerably from one plaza to the next, or even one corner of a plaza to another. We traverse the peaks and troughs of an old and vertical development. Locals joke that all paths run uphill in Toledo. We believe ourselves saved from this cruel fate as Bloodroot has his iPhone with GPS, but au contraire! The iPhone issues bizarre directions leading us on a very convoluted, mountain-ascending trajectory through Toledo. IPhones ignore elevation, one of their many flaws designed to remind you of the danger of overreliance on a minute internet connection. We wander up and down and all over the place. Bear loves this. He enjoys the back streets and alleyways, dreaming of foraging in the old medieval city. His muscles don’t.

We first stop at the thousand-year-old mosque (Mezquita del Cristo de la Luz), partially converted into a church (the “Cristo de la Luz” part aka Christ of the Light), saving it from the medieval equivalent of the wrecking ball following the reconquista. Bloodroot kindly loans his mother his warm down jacket before crossing the street to tour the completely inaccessible building, where someone drew Jesus on the wall and stars on the ceiling. Bear and I happily bask in the warm sunshine, up on a hill, gazing at Toledo, enjoying the Moorish geometric designs on the outside of the building. Bloodroot decides, unexpectedly, NOT to buy anything at the conveniently located adjoining book shop, leaving us without a Toledo magnet or mug souvenir. He rejoins us.

After more convoluted trailblazing, we reach our second stop, the Cathedral. We drag Bear into the church as he kicks, screams, stomps and growls. He abhors all churches by this point in our progress through Spain, even this one, a very pretty gothic place replete with mudéjar (Moorish) architecture.

Despite Bear snarls and groans, we enjoy the tall stained glass windows with their pretty colors. We take a closer look at the various chapels, each dedicated to a particular saint. Mary is, of course, big. The Sacristy holds numerous religious paintings created by important artists (Goya, Velázquez, Titian, Rubens, Caravaggio). Having just visited the Prado, we breeze through. Spiritually sated, heaven bound, we find ourselves physically hungry.

Leaving the cathedral, we find a €13 fixed-price plate place called Coleccion Catedral. The boys bump Bird and me into the restaurant, climbing one step. Initially, we enjoy our plates of food. Slowly more patrons enter the restaurant. By the meal’s end, no one waits on us to bring us desert, tea, or the check. Via the servers’ incompetence, the restaurant wastes much of our limited time in Toledo, earning a C-.

Ah well, on to our third and final top, the Sephardic Museum, an ancient synagogue built, like many of the older buildings in Toledo, in an exotic pre-Christian architectural style. Moorish brickwork and tiles cover the walls and ceiling.  They dominate every space shining in bright blue, green, red and beige. Entering, I’m confined to one small space. The museum doesn’t really have much, most of the exhibits dull, the main draw being the astounding edifice itself. But finding this place has taken us a long way from the train station. The docent tries to explain the bus stop location, but ends up advising us to catch a cab back. Complying, we find a taxi and ride back down the hill to the RENFE station, ensuring we catch our train home.

Timely arriving at the Toledo train station, a RENFE woman hustles us on board, directing us to handicapped seating, for once. She continues to lecture us, telling us how to live our lives, I suppose. Cripples lack intelligence, requiring constant clueless advice from others. My limited Spanish precludes my understanding her. Bloodroot remarks, “She’s even more annoying if you know what she’s saying.”

One-half hour later, we arrive in Madrid. Leaving the Atocha station (at times our second home), Bloodroot expresses a desire to stop somewhere and have a hard cider. On the way home to our Lavapiés flat, we find a corner bar tapas place, called Santeria, selling the coveted hard cider.

Finding nice outdoor seating we sit down. Bear and I enjoy a glass of wine, while Bloodroot indulges in his hard cider. Suddenly a gentleman approaches us, interrupting our hard-earned reprieve. Instantly too close, invading our personal space, he begins to beg in Spanish. I look at him coolly, “No hablo español,” I respond. “That’s fine,” the beggar says, “I speak English. I’m down on my luck. Can you help me?” “No!” I respond calmly, “Please go away.” I say, according to my family gesticulating while I say it. “Boy, are you hard-core mom!” says Bloodroot in admiration. I feel I was unfailingly polite. After all, I said please. As the wheelchair-bound person, I no longer have any patience for people begging. I worry I’m becoming a Republican. All I think is, “You can walk, asshole. Go get a job for Christ’s sake.” The boys decide to direct all future vagrants to me. I fear I’ll be punched in the face for my attitude some day.

Bloodroot buys some hard cider in returnable bottles to take home. We depart. Reaching home, I snooze while the boys cook yet another delicious dinner. Indulging in their labor’s product, I realize, once again, how good I have it.

Wednesday, October 14, 2015 Royal Palaces, History & Armor

Following a nice hearty breakfast, we again roll over the few blocks to museum-land. Yesterday, Bloodroot’s much disparaged iPhone led us up and down numerous steep hills on the way to the Prado. But by today, Bear has already memorized our location. Using his brain, he cleverly maps our path to the Royal Palace. He directs us around the hill instead of over it, a much easier walk and push. Bloodroot, the pusher extraordinaire, follows in Keith’s wake, mumbling gratitude. Bear’s brain-mapping faculty amazes me, as I never know my whereabouts. My directional abilities, never stellar to begin with, have completely disappeared since I no longer drive. My current general response “Wow! We’re here” tends to elicit scorn. (Or occasionally envy, as in, “Wow, we’re in Europe. How did that happen?” Just kidding. No one could forget the lovely, endless flight.)

Left to his own devices, Bear would only visit art museums: perhaps, at times, a logical choice. I, on the other hand, want to vary our events and tours, so today we visit the Royal Palace. In his bible, Rick Steves calls the edifice before us one of the three best palaces in Europe. (His opinion: 1) Versailles-Paris, 2) Schönbrunn[ -Vienna, 3) Palacio Real-Madrid.) I have toured the first two; I now plan to complete my experience.

Renovated by the Bourbon dynasty following the War of Spanish Succession, this palace resembles Versailles but lacks the history and intrigue of Louis XIV’s palace. No Hall of Mirrors.  Quick history moment: In 1700, the inbred, crippled Charles II (aka the Bewitched), the last Spanish Habsburg, died childless, willing his kingdom to the French Bourbon Philip, Duke of Anjou, Louis XIV’s grandson. The other European powers, appalled and duly terrified at the prospect of a French-Spanish union, began the War of Spanish Succession. Thirteen years later, the war ended in compromise. The Bourbon Duke of Anjou ascended the Spanish throne as Philip V but renounced any claim to the crown of France, for both himself and his successors.

Back to the palace. We approach the palace ticket desk. As a cripple, I enter gratis, a beneficence unknown in the States. First, the grand staircase greets us: imposing, perhaps more so as naturally we can’t climb it. We head instead for the ascensor.

Exiting the lift, we embark on the unidirectional tour through a narrow, industrially carpeted, roped-off section of each room. We don’t move fast enough, allowing large tour groups to rush around us and trap us in boring spaces. We meander through lots of big square rooms, none architecturally striking. We see Tiepolo’s moralizing frescos on various ceilings, but as usual, we need the more detailed explanations. We understand one where Aeneas, a Greek soldier, instructs the guards on proper behavior in the guard room. Acquiescing, we accept our rudimentary education and give up on enlightenment promised by 18^th-century power philosophy disguised as moralizing lessons. Traveling onward, we enjoy the tapestries, designed by Raphael and woven in Belgium, and the Goya paintings. Some rooms have cool wallpaper; in others we find interesting furniture.

Our favorite room contains the royal collection of Stradivarius instruments: a cello, a violin-cello, and some violins. Previously, hearing these glorious instruments played required a personal invitation from the Queen Sofia. Bloodroot overhears a tour guide speaking in French. Through the tour guide (via Bloodroot’s translation), we learn that the performers now upload their gigs to YouTube so everyone can enjoy them.

Ok, I agree with boys. When we next visit Europe, we needn’t tour any more palaces. Keith will skip Schönbrunn should we ever visit  Vienna. (I found Schönbrunn  absolutely amazing but I was eighteen and obsessed with both Maria Teresa and the Austrian Habsburgs.) Bear growls that he wants to visit more palaces but tires of me dragging him into yet another fricking church.

But more importantly, am I outgrowing Rick Steves? We avoid his recommended hotels like the plague as they attract far too many Americans, people we can meet at home and needn’t travel to Europe to see. Some of the things Rick considers must-sees we could easily skip, like this palace.

Exiting, we find ourselves in a large square abutting the palace, La Plaza de la Armerίa. Bloodroot and I bask in the sun like lizards, while Bear, ever a bear, begins foraging. To the left of the palace, Bear discovers a museum full of armor, the Real Armerίa. Excitedly, he returns to the plaza to collect Bloodroot and me. We enter the museum, the royal armory, actually an oft-overlooked part of the Royal Palace. The boys love this place, having never seen so much armor. Will they begin dueling?

The museum includes the armor worn throughout the respective lifetimes of Carlos V, Felipe II, and Felipe III, much of it parade armor.  Royalty dressed their children in armor from the second they emerged from the cradle. The royalty wanted to prove they could produce living progeny, not an easy task given the infant mortality of the time and their extreme consanguinity. Viable offspring, aka living children (an heir and a spare), meant a stable succession, vitally important in these times. Otherwise, upon a royal’s death, the realm could descend into civil war, not healthy for anyone. As products of successful breeding, the children marched about, on display in parade armor showing off their individual royal elegance and bearing, reflecting their personal God-given divine mission to rule. Armor, never cheap, affirmed the king’s wealth, especially as he could afford armor to strut about in, not needed for the dirty work of fighting. As the court moved through the country on a royal progress, in every town, royalty had the opportunity to showcase their children swaggering about in armor. Owing to the era’s primitive sanitation, the court moved often, allowing servants to clean up the mess left behind.

We leave the royal palace and find a place to have lunch with €10 fixed-price plates. Wow! A good deal and good food! Unfortunately, we find this a rarity in Madrid. We enjoy a slow, leisurely lunch of delicious food and wine.

Sated and emboldened by our late lunch, we consider ourselves ready to visit another museum. “No more churches or palaces!” growls the Bear. 

Heading out for the next museum, Bear stops in a sweets store and buys a dark chocolate bar with hazelnut bark. Now happy compadres, we approach the Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Museum located next to the Prado (known locally as the Thyssen), an acceptable animal selection. Entering and purchasing tickets, we face a dilemma. It’s 4PM and the museum closes at 7PM. Shall we see the Munch exhibit with many paintings borrowed from the Munch Museum in Oslo or tour the museum’s regular collection? (Somehow I’ve been to Oslo twice, but never toured the Munch museum. All people of Norwegian descent must visit Norway repeatedly, God said!) We choose Munch.

The guest exhibit of Edvard Munch, an artist unknown to me outside of his Scream painting, occupies an entire wing here. We go from room to room as Munch’s words explain the surrealistic ideas behind his paintings. With Munch’s art we explore archetypes of love, desire, jealousy, fear and death.

I have always believed that surrealism arose as a response a World War I, the war that did not end all wars, but simply set the stage for World War II. Responding to the futile, endless, ludicrous slaughter of WWI, artists began to look within. Yet the surrealistic Munch painted the feelings flowing from within his soul in the 1890s. Another of my cherished beliefs falls, victim to reality presented in European art museums.

Munch dwells on the changing roles and lives of women during his lifetime. He believed that the world changed irrevocably when women escaped the corset. As freed beings, women gained the upper hand, holding all the power men had always lacked. Munch once drew woman as the femme fragile, depicted in profile standing off to the side of a painting. Later his women boldly stare out at you, front and center on the canvas proudly embracing their seductive power as femmes fatales. They move from playing a supporting role to ruling all that they see. In other works we find women’s lives, graced at long last by self-actualization, still remain haunted by the all too human frailties of sorrow and death.

Munch explores his feelings on love. He embraces the scary free woman full of both Eros and Amor, painting glorious kisses, but also depicts her as a vampire.

Leaving Munch behind, we think about spending the next hour with the regular collection because the ticket vendor told us our tickets permitted multiple entry through the remainder of October. We approach the lifts accessing the permanent collection. “Au contraire!” says the fairly unpleasant ticket collector stationed at the entrance. She stamps our tickets, telling us we have an hour. We complain loudly and bitterly, our animal vocalizations upsetting the other museum patrons. “OK, OK already,” she concedes, un-stamping our tickets. Now thoroughly annoyed, she actually gets up off of her chair to shoo us away. “Come back another day!” she huffs.

Leaving the museum before being escorted out, we roll around the hill toward home. Back in the ‘hood we shop for dinner, again buying food to prepare, accompanied by some bread and wine. Arriving home, Bloodroot runs up the four flights of stairs, gathers Tinky and sends him down the elevator. I transfer from Bird to Tinky and ride the lift upstairs. Exiting, I send the ascensor back down. Keith folds Bird, loads her into the elevator, sending her also up four floors. He walks upstairs too. Animals and mobility devices reunited, we enter our flat and begin cooking.

The boys create a nice dinner of chicken and broccoli. We enjoy our wine and turn in for the night.