Unfortunate

Today I visited the last of the three main art museums in Madrid: the Museo Nacional del Prado.

Although the Prado is the most august and prestigious of the three museums, it was actually the least enjoyable for me. For a start, all photography is forbidden, so I couldn’t rename any paintings. This is of course an outrage: it’s the 21^st century, are we supposed to just look at paintings and then… remember them?

Many paintings were also hung salon style, with some relatively small pictures two or even three metres off the floor, meaning that one couldn’t see any details even if one wanted to. Others were simply so massive that they could only be viewed from a distance, whether they be a swimming pool-sized portrait or… whatever this is.

All of this was made worse by the fact that the physical layout of the museum was confusing, with webs of rooms connecting multiple ways. The rooms were numbered, but not necessarily sequentially, with 35-39 at one end of the building and 40-44 at the other. Additionally, some rooms were just normal digits (ie Room 12) while others had multiples (ie Rooms 13, 13A and 13B), with no indicators as to how many room any given number represented.

Judging by the number of tourists I saw poring over maps, consulting the wall plans, and suddenly changing course in a corridor with a look of irritation and hurrying back they way they’d come, I wasn’t alone in my confusion.

They did have a neat trick of placing different versions of the same artwork next to each other, allowing patrons to compare and contrast. These were either two versions that the artist did because he wasn’t quite happy with the first version, or mini-me versions next to the much larger finished product, completed as dynamic planning exercises, or a preliminary proof of concept painting for a planned mural or tapestry, plus the mural or tapestry. But that wasn’t enough.

So unlike the other two art musuems, I didn’t leave thinking I’d learnt something cool about art, history, or art history. I did learn that Charles II of Spain was a very unattractive man, but that’s about it.

Actually that’s not fair. I learned the following things about the following artists:

Rubens – lots of juicy and dramatic people having the most extra day of their lives.

Brueghel – never saw a fruit or flower, or dead poultry animal, that he didn’t want to paint.

El Greco - 16^th century weirdo who painted like a 20^th century weirdo.

Goya – definitely having some seratonin uptake issues.

Bosch – nutty in a way we still don’t quite have words for.

Once I got back to the hostal, I semi-siesta’d while revising photos and planning activities for my remaining time in Madrid. But while checking through my travel paperwork, I noticed that something about one of my dates seemed off. I checked a few associated dates, and the offness persisted. Then, with mounting horror, I realised that when I’d booked them two months ago, I’d somehow messed up my homeward flights.

What I thought I’d done: booked my Iberia Air flight from Madrid to Malpensa, booked a hotel at the airport for the night, and booked my Qatar flights to Perth for the following day.

What I’d actually done: booked my Iberia Air flight from Madrid to Malpensa, booked a hotel at the airport for the night, and booked my Qatar flights to Perth for the same day.

Oh… dear.

It’s not, yet, a disaster. By sheer luck, the daily Madrid/Milan flight gets in two and a half hours before the daily Milan/Doha flight, so while I thought I’d have 26.5 hours in Malpensa, I still had 2.5 hours between the Madrid flight landing and the Doha flight taking off. As long as the Iberia Air flight lands more or less on time, I then have two and half hours to deplane, get to the baggage claim, retrieve my bag, get to the Qatar check-in counter, check my bag, pass through security and get to my boarding gate. That’s tight, but probably doable. Thank goodness the Iberia flight lands at the same terminal from which the Qatar flight departs. I’ll have to forfeit the $177 I’ve already paid for the Malpensa hotel, but that’s not the end of the world.

As long as the Iberia flight isn’t delayed. And there aren’t massive queues at Malpensa security like there were last time. Or something else goes terribly wrong.

It’s just a layer of stress I don’t need. And I was feeling so good about the final days of this holiday!

With this mortifying Schrodinger’s Disaster fresh in my mind, I headed out to drown my sorrows in booze.

Pirate Pete picked up on my disquiet. Or maybe it’s just dawned on him that his primary role on this holiday has been to pose next to large, overpriced cocktails. Either way, he’s upset.