Madrid

The city of Madrid stands on a plateau in the centre of Spain and is the highest Capital city in Europe.  The days are hot and the nights are sultry which accounts for the late hours that the Madrileño's keep.  Whole families take to the streets and restaurants and shops and boulevards are buzzing into the early hours.  During the Winter months, sharp frosts are common and the watery sun shining all day cannot quite melt iced-over ponds.
Like many old European cities, the origins of Madrid are are shrouded in mystery.  One complicated legend holds that a Prince Bianor taking flight after the Trojan War wandered from place to place [ shades of Ulysses here and the founding of ancient Rome by Aeneas } until the god Apollo appeared to him in a dream and ordered him to build a city in a place ordained by him.  On completion of the building of the city then Bianor would forfeit his life ---which must have been a real incentive to start work.  When Bianor awoke from his dream he found himself in a place of rich groves of oak and madroño trees where shepherds were tending their flocks ---the shepherds were called "carpetanos" or "those who have no city".  Bianor told the Carpetanos of his dream and the shepherds began to build the city, not daring to oppose the god.  When the city was nearing completion Apollo again appeared and directed that the city should be called Metragirta and demanded the death of  Bianor who very obligingly fell off his perch and was buried in an ornate tomb which must have been some consolation.  The same night the goddess of the earth and a daughter of Saturn appeared and pulled him from his tomb and presumably made him take a hot shower.  Metragirta then became Magerit and then Madrid.  The above story is far more complex than I have recounted, involving Bianor's sister founding Mantua and stories persist all over Europe of cities founded by refugees from the Trojan War and whether or not they have any basis in fact they are fascinating if only for their longevity.
And here is Cybele herself outside the ornate main post office in Madrid with two lions pulling her chariot.

The postcard shows a romanticized 
version of the Cybele ---date is anyone's guess

The most scholarly interpretation is far more prosaic and as in so many other matters involved the coming of the Moors in 711 A.D.  It seems that in the area of the present Royal Palace there was a watercourse called Matrise, The Mother of Waters, which the Arabs converted to Matrit and from there it was just a small step to Madrid. 
So you pays your money ----- personally I like all of them.

The Prado

Just a short walk along from the Cybele is the Paseo del Prado which is a beautiful boulevard made for strolling.  There is usually a market or exhibition in the central reservation but most people come here to sample the delights of  the Velasquez's, Murillo's and Goyas in the Prado art gallery.  The statue of the painter on the left is tucked away to the rear of the Prado and the only reason I can think of is that there is such a beautiful backdrop in the form of the Church of San Jéronimo. 

Once again, I would like to show many of the paintings housed within the Prado but space permits only a sample and it is my favourite which is Goya's "Los Fusiliamentos".  A terrified peasantry are being executed by firing squad during the Napoleonic Wars.  The French invaded and occupied Spain and Portugal for several years from 1808 prompting guerrilla warfare in the countryside and a general uprising in Madrid on the 2nd May 1808.  Goya's painting commemorates the aftermath of the uprising when the executions hardly endeared them to the Madrileños.  The site of the firing squad can still be seen today at the side of the Montaña del Principe Pio and not far from the Royal Palace near to what was once Murat's headquarters, although it is much changed.  
The French never understood that the Mamelukes based in the city were associated with Moors by the Spaniards and but for that fact the uprisings might never have taken place.

The above montage of photographs is a small section of Parque del Retiro
which is a short walk from the Prado.  Once the Royal residence of Philip 11
the area incorporated San Jeronimo and in the 16th century was the scene of bullfights, firework displays, theatrical performances and so on.  The Park became open to the citizens of Madrid in 1869 and has been a favourite Sunday stroll ever since.  The pictures above are of the magnificent monument to Alfonso X11.  In the foreground is the boating lake teeming with huge mirror carp which will eat from your hand

The Plaza Major
I have to say that the traditional King-on-horseback statues are so widespread as to be boring in the extreme.  Not only that, they are usually completely unrepresentative of the King or whoever as to be virtually useless as a representation i.e. there are Kings laden with medals from wars they never fought, angelic looking Kings who were as bloodthirsty as Attila and worst of all the Monarchs wearing togas and laurel wreaths 2,000 years past their sell by date.  So, for these reasons I have made a point of excluding this type of statue from this document unless there is a very good reason for doing so and in the inclusion of the statue here it is the setting that surrounds it which is the factor.
The Plaza Major is a beautiful medieval square which is so well preserved that it could have been built yesterday.  The arcades attract shoppers, there is a stamp market and the pavement cafes are ideal for reflecting on one's luck in not having to squabble over a cheap bottle of wine, as the winos also share an appreciation of the Plaza.  It takes a great leap of imagination to envisage the square in it's medieval heyday when it was a Spanish version of the Colosseum.
 Having instigated the debacle of the Armada, the Plaza Major was one of Philip the Second's better ideas in 1580. But the square was not completed until 1617 and Philip the Third received most of the credit due to his predecessor.  There again perhaps Philip the Second would have distanced himself from the Plaza if he had known the uses to which it would be put.  Nothing less than a huge arena for theatrical displays, the Plaza was utilised as a bullring, Kings were proclaimed here one day while criminals were burned the next.  Never short of spectators who paid extremely high prices to watch the proceedings the hypocrisy of canonising a Saint and then burning heretics seemed lost on both the priests and the crowds who no doubt went home filled with virtuous memories of a good day.
The auto da fe { trial of faith } was without doubt the most highly attended of the displays, although most present would deny they were taking any pleasure in being there but had paid to attend through a pious sense of duty.  The Plaza was one of the public arenas scattered throughout Spain where the Spanish Inquisition regularly put on theatrically thrilling displays always culminating in the burning of numbers of so-called heretics.  Despite the day-long ceremonies, the spectators who sometimes counted Royalty among their number, being pious in the extreme never left their seats before the grand finale even though the result as always a predictable Inquisition 20 ---Heretics 0.

Bullfights went on in the Plaza Major until the middle of the 1700's,  when the spectacle had become so popular that it was realised that a larger venue was needed.  The first bullring was built in 1745 in the Calle Alcala and subsequently moved to its present site of Las Ventas seating 23,000 aficionados.  Never been to a corrida and don't really wish to but the matador makes a great subject for a statue.

 Madrid's a great city by any standards and as I have emphasised several times in all of the places
represented here there is always plenty more to see.  What you see here is never more than a personal
view of the things that take my eye and also an attempt to show things which are a little out of  the way of
the normal tourist sights.  One of the places not shown here is Atocha Station which is an excursion in itself  with its tropical gardens and just half an hour away is Toledo and we never even went to the Royal Palace ..................