Arrived to Madrid on the day of Fiesta Nacional, Spanish national day. Most of it you could feel in the local train between Figueres and Barcelona. The Spanish minded Catalans from the small villages were travelling to demonstration in Barcelona with Spanish flags. However, in Madrid you hardly could see any signs of the national day, except plenty of people around due to long week-end.
We arrived to the Atocha station in Madrid. It is a beautiful building, but it is also a place where nearly 200 persons were killed by a terror attack 2004. Because of that the biggest railway stations have now strict security checks. That is what we learned at the Barcelona Sants station when we tried to rush to the AVE train towards Madrid, due to late arrival of the local train. We managed, but at the last minute.
Madrid is a mecca for an art lover, and even if you would not be, it is worth visiting the great art museums . We used one day in Prado seeing old paintings of 15th and 16th centuries. Twice we had to use the servings of the cafeteria at the ground floor. At the next day we had a little bit shorter time in Reina Sofia, which had mainly art from the 19th century. We first went to see the Guernica, Picasso’s famous painting ordered by the second republic for the Paris world exhibition 1937. The civil war ended first 1939. There was also a film of the civil war shown opposite to the Guernica painting. It had some similarities to the Finnish civil war that has been remembered this year when 100 years have passed.Several questions arouse to us, and luckily we could get answers later in the afternoon when visiting a Finnish Spanish family. Then we learned that it was Luftwaffe, that bombed the Guernica, as Hitler was a friend of Franco. We also learned that Spain did not participate the second world war due to that friendship.
When travelling with light packages, you have to use time for some everyday issues like washing your cloths.
It also takes time to buy the obligatory seat tickets on big railway stations, that happened earlier to us in Spain and again at Puerta Atocha. First you have to find the place where you can buy the advance tickets and then reserve at least 1-2 hours to line up for them. The waiting time you can use for trying to find from where your train is going to leave. Some stations are very logical and easy to find, but like Atocha the trains are leaving at two levels and you cannot see the number of the rails before passing the security check. So ask and ask and ask.
In the second afternoon we had lunch with my goddaughter Sanna and her family. Now they were three instead of two, last time I visited them. Saul had made excellent Paella and flan for the desert. We could also taste his cousins home made coffee liquor.
Good Bye Madrid this time, our journey continues to Malaga and Benalmadena.
