Northwards - Avila and Salamanca

With a week to go before our ferry from Bilbao it was time to think about heading northwards. From Aranjuez there are two options, skirt around the eastern suburbs of Madrid then head north to Soria and Logroño. Alternatively, take the motorways west of Madrid through the Sierra de Gredos that would enable us to visit Avila and Salamanca. We chose the latter route, deciding that Avila's famous medieval walls were something we might like to see, and on a more mundane note Camping Regio on the outskirts of Salamanca has a laundry. This raises an interesting question - what has shaped our 12 year sojourn by motorhome around Europe - the continent's cultural gems or the availability of laundry facilities?

North of Madrid the AP6 climbs quickly towards the southern flank of the Sierra Guadarrama. It's a spectacular looking landscape, today especially so with banks of thundery looking cumulus half obscuring the jagged peaks.  We turned west towards Avila, crossing a dun coloured plain. 

The area autocaravanas at Avila seems to be operated by the local motorhome owners association. It's the first time we have come across this in Spain. This is not uncommon in Italy,  a good arrangement as the places tend to be better looked after than municipal run ones, and better laid out too as they have been designed by people who know what motorhome owners need. We pre-booked on-line, it was a relief that the office was open when we arrived as the instructions for using the barrier code are somewhat gnomic. The guy behind the desk ticked us off the pending list, and was able to sell us a baguette for lunch too. 

The area is a couple of hundred metres from the old town's walls, adjacent to the tour bus parking and a newly constructed police station - convenient and secure! We wandered up to the walls to take a few photos, a steep climb! 

The ramparts are impressive, built in part on Roman foundations, then with Moorish additions topped by post reconquista crenellations - that amounts to two thousand years of uninterrupted human habitation. The walls are floodlit after dark - I took a photo, it doesn't really capture just how spectacular they are.

The next day we explored the old town itself. We wondered about having lunch out, there were lots of cafés marked on Google maps, however most had distinctly lacklustre reviews. Beyond the old city gates the reason became clear. We should have realised by the size of the coach park that Avila is a big day trip destination. Experience has taught us that mass tourism equals mediocre catering. However, it's not just the walls and ancient streets of the old city that attracts people here. 

Avila is an important place of pilgrimage, the hostels with shell insignia attest to that, however the trashy religious gift shops and big coach park suggest that these days most religious tourists arrive in air conditioned buses not on foot. Aside from its ancient walls Avila's main claim to fame is that Saint Teresa was born here in in 1511. She entered a Carmelite nunnery at the age of 20, and over the next half century became venerated for her writings which promulgated a mystical, ecstatic approach to religious devotion. She also campaigned for more austere practices in the Carmelite order. 

During her lifetime she was a divisive figure, her writings much loved by the laity, however the probity of her ecstatic outpourings were questioned by the more conservative elements within the Catholic hierarchy.

Nevertheless Teresa was canonised in 1622, around the time the Bernini produced a somewhat more eroticised depiction of her spiritual ecstasy.

She remains to this day one of Catholicism's most venerated saints, particularly in Spain. To the skeptically minded all this seems very odd and the trashy religious tourist tat on sale simply ludicrous.

Avila itself has significant old churches and a network of ancient streets, but like many upland towns it feels a little bleak and austere. The Google reviews were right about the place's cafes, we headed to one of the better regarded ones and it just about managed to be mediocre. The welcome was somewhat half-hearted too, which is unusual in Spain.

We gave up on the touristy old bit and headed towards Avila's main shopping area. We needed to find some small gifts for Nico's first birthday. Alehop to the rescue! We are much happier with retail therapy than religious devotion.

On the way back to the van we walked back through the old city's main square. Big posters advertised upcoming events for Semana Santa - there are spectacular Easter shenanigans in most Spanish cities, but I guess the one in Avila must be deemed particularly sacred due to the place's association with Saint Teresa.

It's a little over a hundred kilometres from Avila to Salamanca. Initially the motorway snakes through hill country but it soon flattens out into the wide upland plain that covers much of the Castille-Leon region. 

At this time of year it's usually barren looking, leading us to dub it 'beige Spain'. Not this time, the unusually wet winter had turned it bright green, reminiscent more of Spalding than Uzbekistan.

Before heading for Camping Regio we found a place on the outskirts of Salamanca offering low priced diesel and GPL, we topped up both, enough to get us back to the UK. Trump's Iran adventure has sent fuel prices skywards and if the war becomes prolonged stocks are going to dwindle. How are flights to Japan in May and our plans to visit the Czech Republic in the summer might be affected remains to be seen.

We arrived at Camping Regio in Salamanca's suburbs in the early afternoon. It was sunny so we did our laundry straightaway. We had it washed and dried by sixish - enough clean clothes to see us home. Sometimes achieving mundane stuff can seem peculiarly pleasing.

We know Camping Regio well, I reckon we've stayed here about a dozen times. However, despite the site having a bus stop by the entrance and a regular service into the city we've only visited the centre three times.

 Checking back in the blog I was surprised to learn that our last visit to the city centre was eight years ago in 2018. There is a good reason for this. When we head south from Santander in the winter Salamanca is just about manageable in a day's drive. Camping Regio is convenient, and more importantly open all year, a rare thing in central Spain during the winter months. It's location is ideal, the climate less so. The high plains of Castille are bitterly cold in January and February, struggling to reach double digits during the day and sub zero after dark. It's not conducive to sightseeing.

In a country endowed with beautiful old cities Salamanca still stands out. I can't think of anywhere better to appreciate Spain's unique plateresque architecture. Whereas in the rest of Europe it's easy to spot the development of architecture from the late fifteenth to the mid seventeenth centuries, a largely orderly procession from the late Gothic, through the classicising Renaissance to the exuberant Baroque, Spain followed a different path. 

The decoration on monumental buildings during this period mixed gothic ornament, patterns adopted from Iberia's Islamic heritage with classical motifs, covering buildings in intricate patterns reminiscent of silversmithing - hence 'plateresque'.

However, before we arrived at the clutch buildings around the university and cathedral that typify the style we had a less elevated but more delicious treat planned. In the street behind the produce market lies  Chocolatería Valor. 

Their churros and chocolate are legendary, it's been eight years since we were last here, we've been anticipating our return visit for days.

We were not disappointed.

Salamanca's Central Square lies just beyond the market area. It's one of Spain's most spectacular. 

At lunchtime it fills up with teenagers from local schools and university students. They gather here to have a chat and have a picnic. It's all very convivial, no messing about and no litter. Impressive!

From here what was once the old city's main thoroughfare leads to Salamanca's ancient heart.

We had spotted a potential lunch spot on Google maps called Tapas 3. It was closed, however another place just around the corner somewhat unimaginatively called 'Tapas 2' was open. I guess the establishments must be linked in some way. 

It was very cosy, more of a snug than a restaurant. I wondered how such a small place could ever make a profit, then I realised the stairs in the corner led down to a bigger dining area in the cellar. We were happy enough to perch on the bar stools. The menu was interesting, the whole place had a cool hipterish vibe. Was this style over substance?

The answer, not at all, the wine list was interesting and the menu promised an elevated take on tapas classics. We were handed a menu in English, we opted for, 'very spicy potatoes' (patatas bravas), Tempura with asparagus and prawns, and 'Grandma Manuela's Croquettes.' The first two dishes were good, however Manuela's Grandma must have been an inspired cook, the Croquettes were sensational.

Tapas 2 didn't serve coffee, they recommended a place nearby, 'Dale Café'. 

The espressos were good, but the most memorable thing about the place was when we were handed a map pin with our coffee. Visitors from abroad are invited to pinpoint their home town on a big world map on the wall. We squeezed ours on the southern edge of the gaggle of Mancunian visitors. Europe and North America were all well represented, as was China and 'down under'. Most remarkable was  a single pin in the emptiness of central Asia. My geography of the steppes is not good enough to identify exactly which 'Stan' the visitor haled from, maybe they were Tajiki or Uzbeki, somewhere on the Silk road anyway.

The area around the University and the Cathedral is very beautiful. It is no coincidence that Salamanca is often likened to Oxford. Similarly the university buildings span the period from the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries, both built in a cream coloured sandstone that seems to absorb sunlight as much as reflect it.

Tulips were in bloom beneath slender cypresses by Cathedral's portal. 'Maybe our daffodils may be out when we get home', we pondered.

Beyond the beds of spring flowers temporary barriers were being unloaded from a municipal truck and a plywood ramp constructed in front of the main door of the cathedral. As in Avila preparations for Semana Santa were well under way. In Salamanca the parade involves shouldering enormous floats depicting scenes from Easter story. It's a tight fit to get them out of the Cathedral and ramps are needed to carry them safely down the steps.

 I wondered how these traditional parades might fare in the future. Spain is secularising more quickly than any other Catholic country in Europe, non-belief is rising even faster than in Ireland. In a recent census 40% of adults identified as 'non-believers' and regular church attendance has dropped to well under 20%, amongs under thirties this has diminished to single figures. Yet the country's Semana Santa events remain popular. In time they may simply become cherished 'folk traditions' like Shetland's 'Up helly aa' or the Padstow 'Obby Oss', events that have long lost their ritual significance but nevertheless assert a sense of community and shared history.

Beyond the cathedral old streets wind down the hill to the banks of the river Tormes. The bridge can be traced back to the Roman era.

Southern Europe didn't really experience a 'dark age' like in the north. Cities continued to grow and trade prospered even after the fall of the Roman Empire, and in Spain in the Moorish kingdom's Islamic scholars reintroduced Greek mathematics to Western Europe combining them with ideas from the near east and Persia. In the thirteenth century learning spread from monasteries into the secular world as the first universities were established, like here in Salamanca.

The buildings around the university are very beautiful, but one of them serves as a reminder that Spain's history has had darker moments too. The main archives relating to the Civil War is located here.

 

Though Franco died in 1975, a fully functional democratic system was not established until 1982. People here who are our age grew up in an authoritarian state. Spain's progess had been truly remarkable, a credit to the Spanish themselves, but also shining example of the success of the European Union. We must cherish this at a time when right wing bigotry is on the rise across the west and the 'American Dream' seems more like a nightmare.  Spain gives me hope, we've had a good day in troubled times.

Madrid, the Prado, Las Meninas, Goya, then finally...lunch.

Motorhomes and urban areas don't mix. If we visit a major city we try to find a nearby town with good public transport links to the urban centre. Madrid is well served in this respect because of Spain's excellent high speed train network, both Toledo and Segovia are possible places to stay even though both are some distance from the capital. In the end we used the campsite at Aranjuez. The town is connected to the Madrid metro, though it's closer to the city than the other two it took longer. Though the metro is inexpensive, regular and comfortable it's definitely not 'high speed'.

I'm the one who wanted to visit Madrid. It's not because I have a strong desire to experience the city, what I want to see are two paintings - 'Las Meninas' by Velasquez and Picasso's 'Guernica'. Sadly they are in different galleries. It's not really possible to 'do' two major galleries in one day. I decided to visit the Prado and see 'Las Meninas'. Maybe we'll return another year to see 'Guernica' in the modern art museum. I appreciate Gill's forbearance in this, she finds the stultifying air and peculiar reverential atmosphere you get in major galleries hard to bear. I do too, but if you want to see a particular picture in situ then you have no option but to put up with it.

Despite the campsite receptionist's dire warnings walking to the station was no problem whatsoever. Most of the way we followed the river on a pleasant footpath The only hazard were gaggles of geese who seemed reluctant to budge from our path.

We reached the centre of Aranjuez, it's about a 20 minute walk. The road to the station passed the town's famous palace. It was redesigned in the early Eighteenth century to emulate Versailles. I'm not a fan of grandiose Baroque piles, we've seen a few over the years, not just Versailles, but Caserta near Naples and Mafra north of Lisbon. 

They're all variations on the same theme, designed to assert autocratic power, grandiose expressions of Enlightenment despotism. Like Gothic cathedrals they may be magnificent architecturally but viewed politically they should be regarded as instruments of oppression.

It took a  little over half an hour to get to Madrid. We alighted at Atocha station. At its heart the building is a magnificent Modernista masterpiece.

The original interior is somewhat hidden these days by modern additions and re-modelling. It's very easy to get lost, which we promptly did. 

We emerged next to what looked like a big palace topped by enormous equestrian statuary above the portico. It turned out to be the Ministry of Agriculture. The minister's job may be mundane, endless meetings about net zero and plasticulture, but the job does come with an office worthy of the Sun King. We consulted Google maps, fortuitously the Ministry of Agriculture happened to be at the south end of Paseo de Prado, exactly where we needed to be, the museum was about a ten minute walk up the boulevard past the Botanical Gardens.

Gill had pre-booked the tickets on-line. This didn't make finding the way-in any easier. The facade of the Prado is about 300m long, there are entrances on each side of the building. Of course we went to the wrong one - for school parties and tour groups only. When we eventually found the correct one at the opposite end we were faced with a cordoned off maze, like you get at a Springsteen concert where tens of thousands of over-excited fans need careful management to avoid a crush. However we were the only punters in sight outnumbered by the neatly uniformed jobs-worths on hand to control the invisible hoard. We still failed to find the way in without help. Even though we had e-tickets we had to go to the ticket desk to swap them for paper ones and present our passports (which fortuitously Gill had in her bag) to prove we actually were aged over 65 and eligible for a €3 reduction. The entry procedure still was not quite complete, off we went again outside, navigated another empty maze then re-entered through the main door. After emptying our pockets and putting both ourselves and our bags  through an airport style scanner we were finally OKed to look at the paintings.

It's not just the Prado, every major art gallery I've ever visited - the Uffizi, Louvre, Rijksmuseum, Moma, - they've all been a trial, too much to take in, exhausting. The secret is not to try to see everything, to go with a plan and ours, on paper at least, seemed modest. Look at one picture by Velasquez - 'Las Meninas' then concentrate on the Prado's incomparable collection of Goya's.

It wasn't easy, the Prado is a former palace consisting of two floors of airy rooms connected by long corridors and a smaller basement area. Each room is identified by Roman numerals above the tall doorway but Arabic ones were used on the plan that I photographed. I guess it's good for you to have to wrack your brains to remember Latin lessons from 1968 to navigate the gallery - XCIV (Goya in the basement)  X11 (Velasquez's Las Meninas).

In reality no matter how much pre-planning you do big gallery behemoths always spring some wearisome surprise. The Prado sprung one one me straightaway. I decided to find the loo, not easy, the institution is much too highbrow to signpost its toilets plainly. I asked. They were in the basement, off a gloomy but spacious arcaded central space. The central area was cordoned off, occupied by a Steinway concert grand. A young woman, a music student I presume, was crouched over the keyboard playing a slow, melancholy melody, a handful of people had gathered to listen, they had adopted their best rapt appreciation demeanour. By the time I returned from my more basic mission the piece was reaching its finale, spectacular runs, cacophonous arpeggios crashing around the confines of the enclosed basement. Concert grands are designed for  somewhere the size of the Albert Hall, the basement was about forty feet across I would guess, the piano was deafening, the space weirdly echoey, the effect nerve-wracking. It had a disorienting effect on me, I couldn't remember which of the arches encircling the room led to the stairs. Finally I emerged and was glad to find Gill. "What on earth was that noise?" she enquired. "I think it might have been Chopin" I replied weakly.

It was good to have a plan, more difficult to stick to it. With the gallery map open on our phones we orienteered our way towards Las Meninas in room XII.  It was tricky, I was distracted by a roomful of swooning El Greco saints, assailed by Rubens' fleshy nymphs, noted a row of Tintoretto, walked purposely through a corridor of Murillo, Zuraban and de Ribera until finally I arrived at room XII

Las Meninas was unmissable, partly because it's a large canvas with a striking composition, but mainly because a small scrum of admirers blocked out the lower third of the picture. Rather than observing the painting itself they all concentrated on their tour guide. He had his back to the painting explaining to the gaggle in front of him why the picture was important. I have no idea if what he was said was sensible because both the voluble guide and his attentive audience were Chinese.

When you go on-line to buy tickets for the Prado you are faced with a deluge of third party sites all attempting to 'elevate' the experience with 'add-ons'. For €36 you can join a 'curated' group tour and have what you are seeing explained to you. It's not difficult to work out which nationality this is pitched at, as the site explains, 'We are waiting for our customers at the door of the Starbucks in Plaza de Cánovas del Castillo.' The tour takes 90 minutes. It's got to be a 'Prado greatest hits compilation experience'. The gallery dispays approximately 1300 art works, to see  them all in an hour and half would mean you have 4.23 seconds to appreciate each one.

For €10 euros less you can hire an MP3 audio guide. I can see that it would be useful if you didn't know much about art. Alternatively, you can book an individual local expert, they rent their services for four hours, which is probably about the time you would need if you were going to fully appreciate the Prado's impressive collection. Again this seems to be pitched at American tourists with more money than sense - the price, a mere $505.

I first came across Las Meninas over half a century ago when I read an essay about the painting while making notes for my A level Art course. Unusually 30% of the marks came from a written History of Art paper. This proved fortuitous as my drawing and painting skills proved somewhat rudimentary but I discovered I was pretty good at teaching myself Art History. Mr Fawcett, my teacher, had little interest in the theory side of things and basically gave us a list of artists and movements from the Renaissance and Baroque era to research in the school library. I discovered I loved looking at paintings, which was tricky given I lived in a small market town, miles from anywhere, in north Northumberland. The Duke of Northumberland's stately pile in the town had a couple of Turners and a Claude Lorraine, then I learned that the National Gallery of Scotland in Edinburgh had a more extensive collection. My Dad was from Scotland and didn't need much encouragement to visit Edinburgh which was about 90 miles away, so doable as a day trip. In Scotland's National Gallery I was able to see many different paintings from different eras and a mixture of all sorts of styles.

The painting which stood out in my mind afterwards was Velasquez's 'Old Woman frying eggs'. In the Renaissance and Baroque eras there was a strict hierarchy so far as painting was concerned. The most  admired works were large scale religious cycles, altarpieces or 'history paintings' depicting significant political events - battles, peace treaties or coronations for example. Next came portraiture - usually of the great and the good, then landscape, still life and so called 'genre' painting. The latter might be characterised as 'scenes from ordinary life'. This had its roots in scenes depicting seasonal rural life in medieval Cathedral sculpture and manuscripts. It emerged into mainstream painting in the Low Countries in the fifteenth century. The works of Pieter Breughel are a good example. However peasant life was often depicted in a humourous way, mocked as much as celebrated, or a moral point made about the importance of hard work or the dangers of drunkenness or lechery.

Velasquez's 'Old woman frying eggs'. affords the two figures - an old woman and a teenage boy - equal dignity as if the artist were depicting an aristocrat, a cardinal or a saint. At the time this was revolutionary. Technically too, I cannot think of another artist from the early 16th Century who matches Velasquez's facility to render a scene with near photographic acuity. Vermeer perhaps, but Velasquez painted this a decade before the Dutch master was born, moreover, aged 20 he was barely out of his apprenticeship.

Unexpectedly It was  Velasquez's earliest work that I found myself thinking about when I came face to face with 'Las Meninas', completed almost four decades later. I recalled reading that it had been called 'the first modern painting', but couldn't remember by whom. Chatgpt to the rescue!

In his 1966 book The Order of Things (Les mots et les choses), Foucault opens with a long, detailed analysis of Las Meninas. He argues that the painting radically rethinks representation—blurring the boundaries between artist, subject, and viewer—and in doing so anticipates key concerns of modern art.

Why Foucault saw it as “modern”

Self-awareness of painting: The work reflects on its own act of creation (Velázquez paints himself painting).

Viewer involvement: The spectator is implicated—standing where the king and queen would be.

Ambiguity of reality vs representation: The mirror, canvas, and gazes create uncertainty about what is “real.”

All of this is true, but what enabled Velasquez to play games with reality was his mastery of realism, something that was evident even in his early work, so there is a direct link between 'The old woman cooking eggs' and the unusually informal scene of courtly life found in 'Las Meninas'.

It's a little strange looking at a painting for real that you have known from photographs for decades. In this size matters. Reproduced in a book all paintings can be taken-in at a glance, whether it's one of  Correggio's monumental trompe-l'œil domes or a postcard sized Turner watercolour. Las Meninas is a large canvas - 3.2m x 2.8m, the foreground figures are almost lifesize. So it's only possible to take in the entire composition if you stand in the middle of the big room it occupies. This proved tricky. The Prado was busy, most of the time a crowd obscured the lower part of the painting.,

When you join the gaggle your eye has to range across the painting taking in details here and there. Velasquez's scintillating realism is evident, but only in parts - the Infanta, her ladies in waiting (las meninas), the court fool, the family dog and the artist's face are all rendered with characteristic verisimilitude.

However the parts of the big canvas are painted more sketchily. The smudged image of the King and Queen in the square mirror on the back wall which forms the painting's focal point is not in itself unusual in terms of technique; it simply applies the principles of aerial perspective found in landscape to an interior scene. However iconographically as a royal portrait it's revolutionary. 

In 1659 King Phillip IV and Queen Mariana of Austria ruled the first truly global empire, their dominions stretching from the tip of Argentina to Mexico in the West and the Philippines and Borneo in the East. Yet in Las Meninas the royal couple are reduced to faint reflections in the background. So who is the  subject of the painting? It's a question that has been long debated - the Infanta, the ladies in waiting, Velasquez - the artist as master of ceremonies? Are we, the onlookers actually the main subject, standing in the space occupied by the royal couple glimpsed in the mirror?

All of this I knew beforehand, but seeing Las Meninas for real still sprung some surprises. I noticed some  details in the scene that are rendered more sketchily than others. For example whereas the artist's face is painted carefully his hand holding the brush is suggested rather than depicted clearly. 

Similarly, the pageboy is sketched in the bottom right of the painting caught in the act of cheekily poking the family dog with his foot. Does Velasquez's loose handling here signify movement? The effect is reminiscent of a late Victorian family photograph where the limitations of early box cameras demanded subjects stay stock still, but they never quite managed it and so odd detail here and there is blurred.

I was delighted to see Las Meninas for real, even if it had taken me over half a century to manage it. I do think it is one of European civilisation's more 'radical' works of art, like 'The Tempest', 'Pride and Prejudice', Beethoven's late Quartets, Picasso's 'Les Demoiselles de Avignon', or Eliot's 'The Wasteland', works that seem ahead of their time, genre-changers that redefine what is possible or acceptable. I think Foucault correctly asserted that 'Las Meninas' should be regarded as the first 'modern' painting. What makes it remarkable is that the work is centuries ahead of its time. When critics in the late Nineteenth century attacked Manet's work, such as 'Dejeuner sur l' herbe', 'Olympia', or 'Bar at Folies Bergere' as looking partly unfinished, or taking liberties with compositional decorum, these innovations can be traced  back to La Meninas painted two hundred years earlier.

We headed to see Goya's work next. They're spread over three rooms, two adjacent to one another and a third in the basement. We found them all eventually, the Prado is a bit of a maze.

In Goya's early portraits Velasquez's influence is evident. Both painters are capable of impeccable realism, however their aesthetics are quite different. Velasquez's eye is cool and analytical, Goya's more emotionally engaging, an odd mix of empathy and edginess that at times can be unsettling.

In the portrait of the Duke of Osuna and his family the handling is so precise the result looks hyperreal. The children exude saccerine innocence, a posed  perfection that feels almost spooky.

Close by we came across Goya's celebrated group portrait of Charles IV and his family. The painting acknowledges it's illustrious predecessor - Las Meninas' - by placing the artist and canvas on the left of the scene. Here, however, the King and his family are placed centre stage. The work hardly exudes royal pomp and circumstance. They look like a motley crew, diminished by their sumptuous attire rather than elevated by it. Not everyone is looking in the same direction, one princess glances behind her, others stare distractedly to the left. It looks like a big family group photos taken at a wedding when people who haven't met for years and never got on anyway are corralled into a gaggle, the result emanating awkwardness rather than togetherness.

Goya makes no effort to idealise the royal personages, he depicts them 'warts and all'. The portraits are so shockingly true to life that it has led commentators to ask if the intention was satirical rather than celebratory.

By now it was early afternoon and the Prado was packed. To protect paintings, I presume, the temperature and humidity in the gallery is strictly controlled. When crowded the place becomes unpleasantly stuffy. We figured that most people would be traipsing through the place room by room chronologically, so the galleries in the basement with Goya's works dating from the early nineteenth century might be less crowded. The ruse proved partly right, the rooms were busy but felt airier.

The works were split between two medium sized galleries. One contained commissioned paintings from the first two decades of the nineteenth century, the other Goya's so called ' black paintings' produced as murals in the house he bought in the 1820s. These intensively personal works were never intended for exhibition but were removed and mounted on canvas after the artist's death.

Two big canvases dominated the first room. They commemorate the popular uprising in Madrid in May 1808 against the Bourbon dynasty installed by Napoleon during the Peninsula War. The unrest on May 2nd of May is depicted on one painting and the other shows the bloody aftermath on the following day when score of citizens were shot by firing squad by French soldiers.

It's a haunting image. Kenneth Clarke commented  that it was revolutionary both in style and content. Compared to the restrained  aristocratic portraits that typified Goya's early work, the raw energy, political engagement and popularist sentiment of 'May 3rd.' reveals how his career spanned the cusp of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth centuries and the transition from effervescent Rococo to a dark, brooding Romanticism.

Goya's last works, dubbed his 'black paintings' occupy the adjacent room. Painted in the early 1820s they originally were murals painted in his house, personal works rather than public. That art might be about personal expression rather than public statement is a Central tenet of Romanticism. They are traumatic works, the product of a troubled mind haunted by the violence and upheaval of the Napoleonic period and reflecting the ill health and deafness that Goya suffered as he aged. It's interesting to reflect on the parallel with Beethoven's late Quartets which are equally 'difficult'.

Some of the paintings reflect a preoccupation with witchcraft...

Others depict old age in a wild, sketchy style, its monochromatic palette presaging Expressionism...

The horror of 'Saturn devouring his son' is deeply disturbing. The painter, who in his youth exuded a sunny humane disposition, seems to have been overwhelmed by dark thoughts and haunted by visions inhumanity in his old age. 

Though these paintings are intensely personal they also mirror broader cultural trends. Grimm's fairy tales and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein were published in the decade previously. A few years later Edgar Allen Poe's spooky short stories appeared in American magazines.  It seems an appetite for the uncanny and 'Gothic' prevailed across much of Western culture in the first few decades of the Nineteenth century.

We decided that we had seen enough. We set out to see Las Meninas and the Goya collection and that's exactly what we did. Time for lunch! There was an interesting looking café marked on Google maps about half a kilometre from the Prado. 

Cafe Matilda is a small hipterish styled place that prides itself on providing 'homey' Spanish food freshly cooked in it's minuscule kitchen. The owner was very welcoming and accommodating. Given the place is situated between the Prado and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, both visitors hotspots, then the Menú del día for €16 seemed remarkably good value.

Tortillas were on offer as a starter,...

for mains Gill chose beef stew, I went for jamon.

Dessert of the day was either a Basque cheesecake or creme caramel, Gill had the cheesecake and I chose the creme caramel - so we could share.

 A glass of wine and a coffee afterwards was included in the price. Considering everything was made to order - unpretentious but delicious home style cookery - and given we were in the heart of a capital city, then Cafe Matilda offers an authentic contemporary style Spanish food at an affordable price. My desire to see Guernica for real in the Reina Sofía Museum means we will need return to Madrid again sometime. Cafe Matilda joins our list of must return to eateries' dotted around Italy and Iberia.

The cafe was in a grid of smaller streets west of the Paseo del Prado in the Barrio de las Letras. The district looks as if it developed in the nineteenth century, but the old buildings are interspersed with modern ones. The area's former power station 'Central Del Mediodía' was converted into an arts centre about twenty years ago. The old and the new are combined spectacularly. The entire structure is suspended on girders to give the impression that the older building floats above the ground.

The gable end of the adjacent building has been converted into a vertical garden.

Spain has to be one of the EU's more spectacular success stories, there is something dynamic and forward looking about the place, it feels optimistic, which is not something you sense in Europe's heartlands to the north. Despite our avowed preference for smaller 'walkable' cities, I think we must return to Madrid, not just to see Guernica but to explore more widely. We've had a memorable day, good for the brain, sustaining for the soul and a delicious lunch too. What more do you need?

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Lisbon then back to Spain

With the same blind faith that the soothsayers of ancient Rome invested in the entrails of chickens I consulted all five of the weather apps on my phone and announced that there seemed to be a brief interlude of warm sunny weather expected, followed by a return to cooler showery conditions affecting much of western Iberia. So we planned a brief visit to Lisbon before heading east towards central Spain.

It's not a long drive from Vila Nova de Milfontes to Costa de Caparica - about 180kms, but at the moment not without complications. The Alentejo littoral is sparsely populated and consequently has few roads. One closure can result in a considerable detour. In fact the direct road from Milfontes to the A20  motorway was closed in two places, both the result of winter storm damage. The alternative route took us  north towards Sines, then inland to join the motorway near Grandola. The A26 is being upgraded to a motorway very slowly, I doubt we will live to see it completed. Whole sections have speed restrictions. We were pleased when we  reached the main Algarve/Lisbon motorway, but not so delighted with the hefty toll charge when we exited. Rates must have rocketed recently. I guess as Spain and Portugal develop economically we can't expect them to remain inexpensive overwintering destinations.

The Orbitur campsite at Costa Caparica was busier than usual. Habitually we're here in February, as Spring approaches it will get busier I guess. The place has also changed the way it allocates pitches. Visitors using the Acsi discount card are now concentrated on places nearest the entrance. Not all of them were long enough to easily accommodate a 7m van. 

We chose the first one that would, which proved to be an error as the busy coast road happened to be next to us just over a tall hedge. It did quieten after 10pm only to roar back into life around 7am. Since I am on a winge-fest, we were less than impressed that despite the site being busier than usual some of the sanitary blocks were closed too.

However the place is a fifteen minute ride along a cycle track to the Trafaria ferry terminal with a boat every hour to Belem so we'll live with the minor inconveniences of the site. Is Lisbon my favourite city? On a sparkly blue spring day like today it's difficult to imagine anywhere better.

Once across the Tejo the cycle track wends its way along the waterfront through Lisbon's former dock area. Re-invented as 'Doca' over the past two decades the warehouses have been repurposed as bars, restaurants and sports facilities. It's a very youthful, buzzy place, as much somewhere to simply hangout as to go-out.

It was late morning, lots of runners jogging about and people doing tai-chi or yoga or simply sitting cross-legged on the quayside reading a book. We passed an empty carpark. In the corner next to a small wireless speaker playing a slow samba a couple of twentysomethings practiced their steps. There was beautiful simplicity about the moment, the pair slowly swaying in a loose relaxed hold to the laconic beat, two small figures embracing in an patch of potholed tarmac, their only audience a phalanx of giant cranes in the adjacent container port.

For some reason the opening lines of Yeat's Sailing to Byzantium' came to mind.

That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees,
—Those dying generations—at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.

Some people find that being with young people makes them feel old, but for me the opposite is true, their youthfulness is infectious. For most of my working life I was surrounded by older teenagers. I loved their energy and optimism, so places with a youthful vibe cheer me up, I end up feeling more energised and hopeful.

We were heading for Ultimo Porto, a fish restaurant situated in the corner of Lisbon's former cruise ship we terminal. Built in the 1920s in an Art Deco style I guess it originally served ocean going liners connecting  Portugal's former colonies. These days the place is deserted apart from the restaurant.

A new cruise ship terminal was constructed a few years ago next to Alfama. What was once an atmospheric barrio, the heart of old Lisbon, had already been transformed by long weekenders renting Airbnbs, the influx from cruise boats completed the process, now it feels like a theme park.

The stretch of river front where Ultimo Porto is located retains a more local vibe, an architectural hotchpotch of scruffy 1960s mid-rise office blocks with old streets behind them, all overshadowed by the huge gantry cranes of Lisbon's container port.

It's a bit of a peculiar location for a a well regarded fish restaurant, but Ultimo Porto is a popular place, so much so that it's best to get there a little before noon when it opens. There was only one other person there before us, but by the time we had been served about 20 minutes later the place had filled up.

Like the place in Sagres we frequent Ultimo Porto specialises in fresh fish grilled on a BBQ. The food was as good as ever, the service however became somewhat chaotic. Maybe some of the staff waiting on were inexperienced, but it wasn't a particularly relaxing experience.

Afterwards we pedalled back towards Belem, under the busy motorway that crosses the Tejo on Lisbon's Golden Gate lookalike suspension bridge - Ponte 25 de Abril. It was renamed to memorialise the day in 1974 when the people of Lisbon took to the streets and placed carnations in the gun barrels of the soldiers who rose up to overthrow the country's fascist regime.

You might expect the traffic to thunder across the bridge. Instead it makes a peculiar sound, a mixture of a low rumble and a ghostly moan. I imagined it as the plaintive mating call of the last brontosaurus.

We stopped by the iconic MAAT building, the view of the riverfront from the big rooftop terrace is one of the best in the city.

We were heading for Manteigaria which we regard as the place that serves the most delicious pasteis de nata in Lisbon, therefore the world. There are two branches, one at Timeout Market,  the other in Belem near the Jerónimos Monastery. It's only a couple of hundred metres from the Belem ferry terminal, but  impossible to cycle there. A railway line runs parallel to the river and the only way across is over a big footbridge next to the Museu Nacional dos Coches. So we locked up the bikes behind the terminal building and headed to the bakery on foot.

It's crucial to eat a pasteis de nata at the correct temperature, too hot and the thick creamy middle burns your tongue, too cold and the squishiness has an unpleasant mouth feel. So you need to arrive at least 15 minutes after the last batch has left the oven but well before it's stood on a shelf long enough to get cold. You can get them reheated in a microwave, but that makes them blisteringly hot. So part of the anticipation is all about hoping for scrumptiously warm deliciousness. Last year's pasteis de nata were too hot, today's - perfection.

As we walked back to the ferry terminal we passed the gates of the Presidential Palace. The guards were in the middle of performing some intricate changeover ritual. Really it hasn't been possible for over half a century to take such things seriously. John Cleese 'Ministry of Silly Walks' sketch immediately sprung to mind.

When we got back to the van discussions returned to where next and what about the weather. Our ferry from Bilbao is now  less than two weeks hence. It's time to decide on how to get there. Option one - drive north towards Porto then along Spain's northern coast. Alternatively we could head inland towards Madrid. Despite this being our eleventh trip to Spain since we began our 'Heels for Dust' adventures we have never visited the capital.

In the end that's what we decided to do. Partly because we promised ourselves at the outset that we would always try to visit new places, a resolution that's slipped somewhat in recent years. Furthermore, we figured that since  the weather outlook remains mixed, -  sunny days interrupted by a procession of stormy Atlantic fronts - heading inland might be a better option than following Iberia's northwest coastline.

It's 628kms from Costa da Caparica where we are now to Aranjuez, a town just south of Madrid with a well reviewed campsite and a metro station. We reckoned it might be a good place to stop for a couple of days to visit the city. These days I try to limit the distance I drive in a single day to under 240kms - 150 miles if you prefer to use more medieval methods of measurement. I do make exceptions, such as driving in a single day from Buxton to Newhaven or Portsmouth to catch the ferry.

What is certainly true is if I break my 150 mile limit for a few days on the trot I end up somewhat discombobulated. How truck drivers manage to drive an average of 600 - 800kms per day I have no idea. It does take its toll, studies show that people who spend most of their working lives as long distance truck drivers have a reduced life expectancy of 3 -5 years.

Anyway, I ignored all of my self imposed rules and decided we could get from the Lisbon area to Aranjuez with just one overnight stop at the area autocaravanas in Trujillo .Most of the first day's journey was familiar territory - the motorway from Lisbon to the Spanish border at Badejoz. It was clear and sunny and the road curiously empty given that it's the most direct route between Lisbon and Madrid.

We continued east following the Guadiana valley towards Merida. Our overnight stop in Trujillo was an hour away, I decided I'd had enough and we headed instead to the aire at Aljucen a few kilometres north of Merida. It's our regular stopping place between Salamanca and Seville when we head south in February. Often we've had the place to ourselves. Not today, lots of big vans heading north, mainly German, most with cars in tow. A big artic arrived late on and blocked access to the service point. The reason why the truck drivers parked here became clear in the morning when white van man turned up and proceeded to change one of the tyres on trailer. Ok. It was an emergency, but there was enough room in the place not to have blocked the service point.

Whereas yesterday's journey covered known territory today's was all new. Just looking at the road atlas I realised a semi-circle of Sierras surround Madrid to the north. I was unprepared for just how spectacular they were, rising from the high plains of the upper valley of the Tajo like a snow-capped wall.

The campsite in Aranjuez is situated on the edge of the royal palace's park. It's ok, a family orientated place with a big adventure playground next to a waterpark. The pitches are big and the facilities oldish but good - a well designed washing-up area with lots of hot water - it's the small things that make the difference!

It must be a Caravan Club recommended site as there were a dozen or so British caravans scattered round the site. Aranjuez is the last stop on one of Madrid's metro lines so is well situated for visiting the city without becoming embroiled in the tangle of urban motorways that ring Spain's capital.

When we arrived at the campsite the receptionist provided us with a metro map and timetable. She was keen to point out that it was much too far to walk to the station and the roads too dangerous for cycling. None of this seemed to be the case.  We speculated that either her cousin owned the local taxi firm or she had taken one look at our passports, noted our dates of birth, and given us age appropriate advice. 

We checked on Google maps, it was 3kms to the station, mostly down an attractive path next to the Tejo, then past the royal palace. No way were we going to go by taxi.

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