Chefprefers BLOG

The trip from Barcelona to Madrid was surprisingly desert-like, the dry flat treeless plains populated by human-needed resources, such as Wind Turbines and Solar Panels. The occasional town blurred by at speeds of 200km per hour. We were sitting in a four-seat den. Four seats facing the opposite with a table between them. The person opposite me either had COVID-19 or a smoker’s cough. Either way, I wanted to reach for my face mask but was caught between whether I should or not. When we got on the plane in Canberra, Jen and I wore our masks. Thinking that the plane AC would be internal. Nobody wears masks here, apart from the occasional old person. Has Covid left us? Or are we becoming immune? We had our Fifth Covid shot but you never know.

Madrid central train station was huge. It took us at least ten minutes to walk on the people traveller to the taxi rank. The taxi fare to the Gran Legapzi hotel was about 15eu, not bad. The capital , like Brussels, had a mixture of old and new. And Yes, the city is littered with Maccas, KFC and Burger King and the there is a new chain called Five Guys. It was the same in Barcelona.

The Spanish capital was a bit business like, lots of tourists but on the subways there were plenty of day to day travellers. The trains were clean and surprisingly appeared to have 75% women. Although most all resume their standard positions, phone in hand, head down and looking for some entertainment. (Photo) Pick pocketer would love their time here. They don’t need a distraction. Although, people in general tend to leave valuables in their hotel safe so they could just be stealing what they bought.

Our time here was very short but we’re able to go to the art museum one day and the Royal Palace the next. The art showed mostly 15 century works of Christian painting. The repeat of Jesus on a cross or the Adam and Eve story was displayed a lot and one Bosch painting, in particular, caught my eye was the Garden of Earthly delights. It’s a triptych which has three panels; painting of the Adam and Eve story on the first, a mixture of people sinning on the second and the burning mountains representing people in Hell on the third. Cleverly when the first and third panel are closed in on the second it shows on the back side an heavenly halo of the globe. Later, Jen and I spoke about the meaning of it. Our thoughts were that people of today are squarely in the middle. We are doomed, Bosch would suggest.

We met up with our intrepid tour on the last night in Madrid and went out for dinner to a local. The restaurant was famous for their vermouth. It was good and their trick is to spray the glass with Gin before you pour in the spirits.

Very interesting Intrepid group of ten. I’ll describe their characters later. Next up, the beige old town of Salamanca. I thought the Sagrada Familia was big.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Garden_of_Earthly_Delights