We began our first full day in Madrid with a visit to the Reina Sofía Gallery. Yes, the same Reina Sofía Gallery we'd started our visit with two years earlier. To review, the museum is devoted to 20th Century art, mainly by Spanish artists, is housed in an 18th Century building originally constructed as a hospital, and is named for Queen Sofía of Spain, consort of King Juan Carlos I. None of this had changed since our first visit, nor has any of it changed since. Not technically, anyway. "Not technically" in that Juan Carlos was the last in a rash of European abdications that began in 2013 (with Pope Benedict XVI, Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands and King Albert II of Belgium), when he abdicated in June of 2014, and is no longer the reigning king (this is now his son, Felipe VI). But Juan Carlos and Sofía retain the titles King of Spain and Queen consort of Spain, while Felipe and his wife Letizia hold the same titles (this must be confusing at times).

But family entanglements aside, the museum's collection seemed to be pretty much the same as it had been two years earlier, though the rules had changed somewhat. The most well-known work in the museum remained Picasso's consensus masterpiece, Guernica, and on our previous visit it had been forbidden to take any pictures of it from within the same room. Here's the picture we took from the next room at the time:

But on our revisit, the rules had changed so that it was forbidden to take pictures of anything in the same wing as Guernica. Fortunately we'd gotten most of that out of our system on the previous visit. But here are some pictures we took on the revisit, mainly from other wings. I've only included works that don't appear on our first visit's web page:






We exited out the back of the gallery's main building and found ourselves in a large skylighted courtyard surrounded by some much newer buildings. This new area turned out to be collectively called the Nouvel Building (the original building was called the Sabatini Building), and seemed to house offices, research facilities and a restaurant.

We left the courtyard and headed northward along the main street, in the direction of the Prado. But we'd had enough art for one day, so we left the main street and went into the south entrance of the Retiro Park, to relax a little. And yes, we'd been to this park two years earlier also, and there is also already a web page describing it. But we had previously entered through a western gate, and had not seen the southern portion of the park. We found this portion to be inhabited by wild animals, and also to be a shady refuge from Madrid's summer heat.

But we reached a spot on the path at which the shade appeared to end, and Nella, fatigued from walking all over the Reina Sofía Gallery, refused to go any further without something to drink, collapsing onto a park bench. Philip and I continued on, promising to return with a Coke.

Philip had not been to the park before, so we departed from our mission somewhat, detouring to take in some of the main sights. We passed the Paseo Parterre area of the park, the route by which we had entered on our previous visit, and it looked pretty much unchanged. The same was true about the monument to Alfonso XII and the boat-covered lake it overlooked. But we did find the nearby artichoke fountain to be devoid of water for some reason.


There was a sit-down café near the lake, but they didn't seem to sell beverages you could walk off with, so we headed toward the Palacio de Cristal, another of the park's landmarks. The Palacio didn't seem to have an art display inside it, as had been the case on our earlier visit, but we did find a nearby ice cream vendor (an outstanding idea!). And turtles.


The vendor also sold soft drinks as it turned out, so we purchased refreshment for Nella (and ourselves). We returned to Nella's bench and found her engaged in a crossword puzzle, which she immediately suspended when she saw that we had an ice cold Coca-Cola for her.

We continued on toward the north edge of the park where we knew there was a Metro stop and happened upon another fountain. It wasn't as elaborate as the artichoke fountain, but it had water.

On exiting the park, we passed by a traffic circle called the Plaza de la Independencia, and noticed a monument in the middle of it. The monument is called the Puerta de Alcalá – it was built under king Charles III as a gate in the city wall (since removed), and dates back to 1778.

We found the Metro stop on the other side of the street. We boarded a train that took us back to our hotel, and we claimed the rest we felt we'd earned.