Let’s explore Madrid for a few days. We took trains to and from Carcassonne, stayed in a hotel on the Gran Vía which is a main commercial boulevard in the center of the city, and wandered from there.
The Gran Vía isn’t especially pretty, but it is grand and bustling. Think Union Square in San Francisco, or a particularly commercial stretch of Fifth Avenue or Broadway in New York. While the roots of Madrid go back to the ninth century, Madrid developed the Gran Vía as recently as the beginning of the 20th century. Haussmannian Paris, with its grand boulevards, challenged Madrileños to show off their city. Like in Paris, a lot of older Madrid was demolished to make way for the grand vision — something like 300 buildings and 50 streets disappeared. ※
Heroic sculptures perch atop quite a few of the grand buildings of the boulevard, and the surrounding district. It seems that, in the first half of the 20th century, banks, insurance companies, and even the local government used grand mythological sculptures to celebrate themselves. Once we realized that these figures were looking down at us from all directions, we started taking their photos — perhaps to capture some of their overindulgence.
The Colossus by the art-deco sculptor Victorio Macho (great name for an artist who obviously liked rather viril figures). This seven-meter tall Roman fellow crowns a commercial building at Gran Vía 60.
This chariot grouping tops what was at the time the Banco de Bilbao. One sculptural ensemble wasn’t enough; there are two of these on this former bank building. There doesn’t seem to be a specific mythological link here; just a bank shouting out that it’s really really powerful.
The building beneath this sculpture was in the 1940s the headquarters of an insurance company. While not entirely clear, many votes say that the male figure is Ganymede, the handsome Trojan prince kidnapped by Zeus to be his lover.
A winged victory flies above yet another insurance company. The early part of the 20th century must have been a good time to be a monumental sculptor.
This one is much more recent. Sculptor Natividad Sanchez developed an ensemble led by Diana Huntress and her dogs. The insurance companies and banks of 100 years ago have moved aside to make way for five-star hotels: This is the Hyatt Centric hotel. ※
The Plaza Mayor (or Grand Plaza) was developed around 1260 during the reign of King Philip II. Religious and official ceremonies, as well as public trials and executions, and bullfights all took place here. Royal families watched it all from balconies all around the plaza. Today — no surprise, we tourists have replaced the royal families, and festivals, concerts and souvenir shops have replaced executions.
The facade of one of the most prominent buildings caught our eyes. Built around 1590, this former bakery successively turned into royal chambers, the San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts, and the Academy of History. Today, evocative expressive figures fill the spaces between the windows. These are murals by the artist Carlos Franco. The murals celebrate the Baroque origins of the square and the building, with mythological references to the goddess Cybele and her wedding to Attis, as well as details that reveal the history, traditions and identity of the Spanish capital. ※
Most must-see lists for Madrid aim the visitor to this sculpture, right in the middle of one of Madrid’s busiest city plazas, the Puerta del Sol. A bear with its nose in a tree (which is a strawberry tree, which in turn is not a tree on which grow the strawberries you’re familiar with; it’s a completely different type of fruit plant). And dated just 1967; seems rather contemporary to be such a big deal.
This bear and its tree first appear on the shield of the city in the thirteenth century.
Bears used to live in the countryside around the cities at that time, as these animals abounded. In addition, they symbolized strength and therefore the same courage of who hunted them. They were one of the most admired trophies. Initially, the bear was leaning on a tower (symbol of Castilla, present in all the shields of both Castillas). The strawberry tree was added a little later, to symbolize an agreement between the Villa and the Madrid cleric on pasture land and trees in Madrid. (source)
As part of an updating of Madrid’s coat of arms and image, the city commissioned the sculpture we see today in the Puerta del Sol. The sculptor was Antonio Navarro Santafé. Today, the sculpture seems mostly an Instagram spot. Why not!
While we really came to Madrid for the food and wine, we felt we had to be good tourists and visit the imposing Royal Palace of Madrid.
Most certainly, the parts of the palace that we saw are impressive and grand. We had the opportunity to reflect on the times when a minuscule part of society had all the power and money. They commissioned amazing art and architecture for themselves and for their political objectives. Sorry to sound so sour. It’s just hard not to hold this reality in mind while at the same time being dazzled by all the gold, design, murals, crystal, rugs, and mirrors.
A tiny bit of history, and then a few images from our visit:
The Royal Palace of Madrid is the largest in Western Europe and one of the largest in the world. With over 135,000 square metres and 3,418 rooms, it has witnessed centuries of Spanish history….
The palace that we see today replaced an older version that burned to the ground in 1734. King Philip V commissioned the replacement palace.
The entire building is made of vaults with no wood in the structure, which would guarantee the survival of a large part of the Palace in the event of a fire, and with many floors to accommodate all the government offices, the official business of the Royal House and the servants. It was a building made to house the country’s ultimate power.
It was under the reign of Charles III that the Royal Palace of Madrid experienced its greatest Italian-style splendour with the arrival of the most famous painters of that time to decorate his residence: Venetian Giambattista Tiepolo and German Anton Raphael Mengs, trained in Rome, was its first court painter. The series of frescoes painted by these skilled artists in the main rooms is one of the most important features of this residence where both Charles III and his son Charles IV lived during only eight weeks a year: in December, Easter week and part of July. In the rest of the year they lived in the other Crown Palaces: El Escorial, Aranjuez and La Granja.
(source)
We are, sadly, not well educated about Spanish royal history. We learned a bit about Charles III. His heritage and goals shine a light on the grandness of this palace.
Charles III was convinced of his mission to reform Spain and make it once more a first-rate power…. He was so highly conscious of royal authority that he sometimes appeared more like a tyrant than an absolute monarch… The survival of Spain as a colonial power and, therefore, as a power to be reckoned with in Europe was one of the main objects of Charles’s policy.
Strength, rather than welfare, was the aim of Charles III. Within these limits he led his country in a cultural and economic revival, and, when he died, he left Spain more prosperous than he had found it.
(source)
While a bit of art and architecture was very interesting, watching the changing of the guard was more entertaining.
Every Wednesday and Saturday … outside Puerta del Príncipe gate, four members of the Royal Guard are relieved of their positions: two foot soldiers and two soldiers on horseback dressed in their gala uniforms -red, white and blue- which are similar to those used by the Spanish Army during the reign of Alfonso XIII [1902-31]. The soldiers march to the beat of a fife … and a drum which play military marches, following official orders and commands. Every 10 minutes, the soldiers on horseback march past the front of the palace. (source)
Not all of central Madrid is so grand and imposing. We particularly enjoyed the Barrio de Las Letras, or the Literary Quarter. The streets are narrow, and the buildings are gently scaled. During our early-spring visit, plum trees were blooming (we think they’re plum trees!).
In the seventeenth century, the Golden Age of Spanish Literature, Cervantes, Lope de Vegado, Quevedo, Tirso de Molina and Góngora, among other authors, had their homes here – hence the name. Some of the streets in this neighborhood pay tribute to this and other brilliant chapters of Spanish history, culture and art. (source)
Cervantes — author of Don Quixote — is particularly celebrated.
In our next post, we will turn to food and theater. As an amuse-bouche, check out some churros and hot chocolate. In Spain, this combination is a breakfast-time or mid-morning treat.
A bit of history, of course:
Chocolate first:
Cacao was brought over to Europe in the 1520s by Friar Gerónimo de Aguila on his return from a trip to Mexico with Hernán Cortés. While the Mexicans prepared it as a bitter spicy brew, from early on, Spaniards took it as a drink with water and sugar added. It was an instant success among the upper classes and became so popular in the 17th century that priests had to ban its consumption during mass.
Outpacing even coffee, in the 19th century, the drink had become a staple for Spain’s working classes and was now taken hot with spices like cinnamon or vanilla.
(source)
And then the churros:
While the first written mention of churros appeared in the 17th century, it wasn’t until the late 19th century that people put the two together. A dough mix piped into hot oil, churros were a treat served up at fairs and enjoyed with sugar sprinkled over them. While it’s hard to pinpoint the snack’s origins, it’s likely that it was brought over to the Iberian peninsula from China by Portuguese sailors. (source)
Some well-traveled chocolate-loving friends pointed us to one of the highest quality Chocolatería & Churrería in the city center. We toast them in gratitude — with a hot-chocolate mustache.
March 2024