Winter in Madrid

It did feel like winter today, cold, damp then very rainy. My holiday reading is CJ Sansom’s Winter in Madrid, the only one of his I haven’t read. I’m learning a lot about wartime Spain and it’s interesting walking past the places mentioned.

It was definitely an indoors day so I booked my ticket for the Prado. I didn’t do it justice, cheating a little I scouted out the most famous paintings, and collected some more Spanish vocabulary of which now I can only remember two words – granada/pomegranate and paloma/pigeon. Not sure how useful that will be.

After a welcome interval in a café I went to the modern art gallery, the Reina Sofia to see Picasso’s Guernica. I’d seen a copy in Guernica in the summer. All too relevant at the moment.

I got back to the hotel relatively early, had a snooze and sorted my accommodation for Malaga, or rather, on the recommendation of a walking pal, Torremolinos where there’s excellent access to numerous hiking trails.