More photos are available here.
Yesterday was Sunday (Oct 11). We walked to the main park to get to Prado Museum (Prado means cow pasture as this area was so back then). The park was packed with families. This park has a small pond where almost everyone wanted to row a boat in there so the line for getting in was very long.
Prado is one of the major museums in the world that I want to see. I've been to the British Museum, the Lourve, Musee d'Orsay, the Met, the Smithsonian and another one in Berlin that I don't remember the name. Prado and the Hermitage (in Russia) are the two remaining ones on my list.
Prado is not big enough to accommodate everyone whenever they wish; thus, the museum sets up the time reservation system where entrance tickets are time and date specific. Marco and Amorn kindly bought them for us from the web. Prado, size-wise, is not as big as other major musumes, but it has very good collection especially on the Spanish & European painters. I've seen the paintings that I only saw on photo, especially ones from Velazquez, Goya and El Groco. Just the Prado itself makes this trip worth it.
I like one painting by Titian that shows three naked women with their backs to us. The message is about platonic love in that it consists of three things: ..., acceptance and reciprocation (I forgot the first one).
Another painting describes the seven deadly sin pictorially. They are very similar to the five hindrances (นิวรณ์ 5) in Buddishm. Seven deadly sins consist of lust (ราคะ), gluttony (ความตะกละ), greed (ความโลภ), sloth (ความเฉี่อยชา, ภาษาพระเรียกว่าถีนมิทธะ), wrath (ความโมโห จัดได้ว่าเป็นความพยาบาท), envy (ความอิจฉา) and pride (ความหยิ่งทะนง ภาษาพระจะเรียกว่าทิษฐิมานะ). I suppose the first three can be grouped into กามฉันทะ. And many religious paintings talk about the ephemeral (transient) nature of life, just like อนิจจัง
I forgot to mention that this trip is very healthy. We start our days with yoga practice; we eat mostly vegetarian food and we go to bed by 9 PM.
Today (Monday Oct 12) was a holiday in Spain (National Day). So Marco could spend time with us. We took the train to Toledo, the old capital. The city itself is amazing, with the city wall, its forts and winding streets. But the main attraction is the Cathedral. It looks unassuming outside but the inside is breath taking. The best I've ever seen, and I've been to major ones. Amazing how so much money was spent on the church construction. It probably almost bankrupted the state... We rented the audio guide so we could get more details.
Tomorrow we leave for Barcelona.
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