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W E L C O M E T O
T O R T I L L A B A Y . C O M
T
H E W E B S I T E O F
A L B E R T O
V A Z Q U E Z A N D C R A I G
A Y L I F F E
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Close-up of
Velazquez' "Las Meninas" Prado Museum 2006 |
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M A D R
I D
B L O G
First of all, we would very much like to
thank this man, Juan ____. Juan runs a tapa bar in the
Plaza Mayor.
On our very first night in Europe,
after a very horrible 48 hours in New York City, a forced
deportation to Mexico City and forced to buy all new round-trip
tickets tickets to Europe, we weren't even sure anymore that we
had made the right decision to come. We we exhausted, hungry,
paranoid and sick. Our hotel in Madrid was very centrally
located in the heart of the old city so we wandered out into the
night and light rain to see if we could find something to eat.
We quickly found the huge enclosed
square called Plaza Mayor and along the interior perimeter under
the recessed arches were dozens of restaurants and
hole-in-the-wall tapa bars. Tapas are a national obsession in
Spain and they are snacks generally eaten between the end of the
work day and the dinner hour of 11 p.m. They can be cold or hot
and range from the grassy, herbaceous and fruity arbequina
olives, freshly fried anchovies and local cheese to fried
calamari (puntillitas) and fried potatoes with chili sauce
(papas bravas) or prawns (gambas) and other very creative small
dishes, like Solomillo al Güisqui (fried pork scallops,
marinated in brandy or white wine and olive oil.) We are ovo-lacto-ichthyo
(we eat fish)- vegetarians so we stayed away from
that although it sounded delicious.
Tapa offerings vary from bar to bar and
it is very competitive. Sometimes the chefs check out each
others offerings for the night to stay on top of the latest idea
Sometimes tapas come free with a drink order. (They are best
with a cold Spanish beer or a glass of rioja.) You can stand at
the bar and eat them or sit at a table. Standing is cheaper and
more fun. Typically one orders several different tapas together,
kind of like Chinese dim sum. It makes a great full dinner this
way, and it's pretty much how we eat at home anyway. (Our friend
Oskar always says a good chef should be able to go to the
refrigerator and make a real meal out of whatever is in there,
no matter what it is.)
We tried a couple of different bars
until we found one that had seafood. The host, Juan , was very
congenial and interested in us and coaxed us into talking about
our tribulation in getting to Spain and where we planned to
visit and so forth. Soon, food and drink started appearing
that we had not ordered, "On the house", said Juan. We stayed
and talked about his kids and joked for several hours, grateful
to have been treated so kindly, grateful to have been welcomed
so warmly and reassured so completely. We left by train for
Barcelona the next day with a new attitude and we never forgot
Juan's hospitality; his rescue gave us all the confidence we
needed to continue our search for a new home.
Three months later we went back
to Juan's tapa bar the evening before we left to return to
Mexico, not thinking he would remember us, it was so long ago
and only for one night, but when we peeked in to his window, his
eyes lit up and he smiled and and came out and greeted us warmly
and asked us how everything went. It seemed fitting that he
would be the last person we talked to before we got the plane.
Thanks buddy, for all your kindness....... |
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Juan from from the tapas bar in
Plaza Major, Madrid 2006 |
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Alberto at
Plaza Major, Madrid 2006 |
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"El Oso y
El Madroño" at
Plaza Puerta del Sol, Madrid 2006 |
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W E
L O V E M A D R I D
Madrid is a beautiful city, the
capital and cultural center of Spain (or is it
Barcelona?), with several world-class museums. On arrival and
departure from Europe we stayed in the heart of the city near
the Plaza Mayor and the the Plaza Puerta del Sol.
Built by King Philip III in 1619, the
Plaza Mayor is HUGE and has been used over the centuries
for all sorts of things like political rallies ( the plaza can
hold 100,000 people) , soccer games and markets. Also
be-headings. This is where the public executions were held
especially during the Spanish Inquisition, the famous "Actos de
Fe", the "Acts of Faith" against heretics and whomever else the
Catholic Church wanted to suppress. Today you are more likely to
find it filled with pigeons sitting on the bronze statue of King
Philip III in the center of the square, and a lovely symphony
orchestra playing, while thousands of tables and chairs surround
the perimeter filled with happy tourists.
The Plaza Puerta del Sol
(Gateway of the Sun) marks the site of the eastern entrance to
the city once occupied by a gatehouse and castle. The Puerta del
Sol originated as one of the gates in the city wall that
surrounded Madrid in the 12-15th century. Outside the wall,
medieval suburbs began to grow. The Plaza is shaped like a
half-moon. On the northern side at the corner of the Calle de
Carmen is the symbol of Madrid the bronze statue the "Bear and
the Strawberry Tree" ("El Oso y El Madroño") and our Hotel.
The whole plaza comes to life every
night with great shopping, restaurants and dance clubs. We saw
the night-clubbers staggering home as we went out in the morning
for breakfast. Been there, had fun, I can dig it, but not
anymore, thank you. |
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The Heart of the City, Plaza Puerta del Sol, and a statue of the Bear and the Strawberry Tree, the heraldic symbol of Madrid. |
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Our hotel on Plaza Puerta del Sol |
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E L
P R A D O M U S E U M
We did a lot of walking around town
but we spent most of time at the Museo del Prado, and who
wouldn't? One of the finest museums in the world and filled with
rich selections of art from the 14th to the early 19th century.
This was Craig's first big European museum and he had to sit
down and pull himself together more than once......
Well, this is what I mean: The world's
finest collection of Velazquez, Goya and Dutch painter
Hieronymus Bosch; Botticelli, Titian, El Greco, Reubens,
Murillo, Caravaggio, the list goes on....and my head starts to
spin..... Later in Barcelona we would visit the
world-renowned Picasso Museum and see a whole room devoted to
Picasso's obsession with Velazquez's 1656, "Las Meninas". (see
below)
It is probably the
quintessential European Baroque painting. It's extraordinary how
this painting influenced art all over the western world. Never
before had a painting been approached in this way and it changed
the way painters approached art, forever. It's one of those
seminal pieces we struggle to understand. "Meninas' means girls
in Portuguese and here is, one the one hand, a
representational painting of a group of the royal family of
Spain, and all the attendant service people including the
extraordinary larger than life dwarf woman/servant, but as
philosopher Michel Foucault points out, there are myriad numbers
of ways.. 'in which the painting problematizes issues of
representation through its use of mirrors, screens, and the
subsequent oscillations that occur between the image's interior,
surface, and exterior'.
The group becomes the focus, not the
individual and the lines blur between the viewer and the
complicated images on the canvas. The mirrored reflection in the
back heightens the complex interior and suggests the painting
may actually be the mirror and the rest a mere reflection. it's
an extraordinary painting to look at and absorb and Craig was
very excited to see it and Goya's entire collection of the
so-called 'Black Paintings', the breathtaking collection of El
Greco and all the rest.
After a few days we left by bullet
train for Barcelona.
click here for
Barcelona
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Alberto admiring his first full-frontal nude statue... |
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Gallery corridors are filled with soft natural light |
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Goya's 'Black Paintings' this one is Saturn consuming his child |
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Bosch's 'Garden of Earthly Delights' |
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'Las Meninas', one the most famous paintings in the world. |
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A closeup of Velazquez in the painting'Las Meninas' |
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"Las Meninas" by
Diego Velazquez from the Prado Museum
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Pablo Picasso's 1957 interpretation of "Las Meninas" from the Picasso
Museum in Barcelona
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