Madrid 3

It's pouring today so sightseeing was a little limited. Nevertheless you can't sit inside all day so I went first to the Prado Museum, Spain's premier collection of paintings. At the risk of incurring the wrath of the many art lovers who read my blog (no really there's at least one), I wasn't all that excited by the Prado. It's got over 7,000 paintings, of which you might see 500 or so before you fall into a coma, and there's nothing there later than 1900 so...sorry art lovers....boring. But it's a nice looking building....that's something isn't it?

I did however find one of the Hieronymous Bosch paintings called the Garden of Earthly Delights. I sought this out because the artist is also a character in a Michael Connelly series of books.

Apparently Dutch painter Bosch was a devout Catholic but the painting features imagery that I'm guessing would not have been accepted in a church.

This is the original Prado before they stuffed it with so many paintings they needed to construct a new building to put them in.

After visiting the Prado, I stumbled across this church, San Jeronimo el Real Church across the road. Although there's not much to it inside, for a 16th century church it's been beautifully restored and the exterior roofing is striking. It's the last remaining structure of the Hieronymite monastery (a Catholic enclosed order) I'm still trying to get the connection to Hieronymous (jheronimus) Bosch above.

Real Academia Espanola

The winged statue outside the National Archaeological Musuem. I think she's had some work done...just saying.

Believe it or not, this is the National Library, home to over 26 million items including 15 million books, making it one of the largest libraries in the world.