For anyone planning a visit to Spain, I can't recommend Madrid highly enough. I wasn't sure what to expect from the city, but it might be my favorite I've ever been to. Madrid is beautiful, clean, walkable, and very welcoming. The food was all amazing and it seemed like we never had to wait for a table. I had a great time in Barcelona, but I'd recommend Madrid over Barcelona in a heartbeat.
Madrid is indeed very nice. Perfect destination in early spring or late autumn as winters are very short there. Avoid in the summer as it gets stupidly hot there. One reason I like it is that it's far away from the beaches and package tourists. It's a huge modern city. And there's plenty to see. I love the public parks there. There's a huge new park on top of the inner ring road which they partially covered up. Perfect place to hang out on a warm day. Also did wonders for the nearby neighborhood which are now quiet and a lot less smelly than they used to be.
There are a couple of other museums well worth visiting near El Prado. El Prado can get very busy because it's on everybody's list of things to visit. I've been there on a quiet day at some point and it's very enjoyable. But when you have to queue up for 45 minutes just to get in, it's probably a lot less nice. Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum has a pretty amazing collection and is right across the street. And down the street is the Reina Sofia, which has a nice modern art collection (think lots of Miro, Picasso, Dali, etc.).
If you have time and a car, driving around Spain is very enjoyable. I've seen most of it's larger and smaller cities over the years.
the roads are really great, they're kept in great shape. The train, although Madrid centric is amazing as well, stupidly fast and not that expensive anymore.
I recommend Madrid as well. I still haven't made it to Barcelona but I did visit the Spanish Riviera also known as the Costa del Sol. I stayed in Torremolinos where a lot of English winter and there were a lot of American sailors in the bars as well. Its a short distance to Malaga which was interesting.
Also went West and caught a boat to Tangiers in Morocco for a day trip. It was my first time experiencing culture shock. Tangiers was so different from either America or Europe. I made friends with two Danish soldiers and the three of us explored the Casbah together. It was also the first (and last!) time that I ate a sheep's eyeball! Little kids everywhere were begging for money. I understood perfectly why they spoke to me in English. But when they found out my friends were from Denmark they switched to speaking perfect Danish! These kids knew a smattering of a dozen languages or more.
Tech workers here are paid so much less than they should be; there's tons of unemployment only to earn 15k/yr when theyre at work. Salaries like this are a joke and should rise
I’m glad more and more people are realizing. Preferring it over Barcelona is very personal; I completely get people who prefer a coastal city as beautiful as the Ciudad Condal. But Madrid was underrated for ages. It’s sunny, beautiful, safe, fun, imperial. Luckily it’s been booming for a while now.
There is stuff to see and do in Madrid for months, but Madrid is the center in a cobweb of roads. This means that maybe 40% of the country or so is reachable from here in a reasonable time.
Distances in Spain are different than in US. Some cities are connected from here in an interval of less than two hours (one-way) by fast train AVE so reserving one day to explore another city as a bonus is doable with some extra work. This comprises Valencia, Salamanca, Burgos or Cordoba. You could basically go from one point to the other coin of Iberia in a day by train if you don't mind to burn a day looking at the landscape. Or sleep in the train and wake up in a different coastal city in a different Sea. Is just a question of money and planning.
In the same way if you go to Barcelona I would strongly advise to explore near destinations in Pyrenees or the South of France also.
I loved them both for different reasons, I went last year for the first time. As another commenter said Madrid felt very imperial, and as you say was beautiful, clean, and walkable. Barcelona felt more arty and had a great coastal vibe to it. I would go back to either in a heartbeat!
We moved to Madrid a few years ago. Summers are incredibly long and unbearable, to be honest, and it's not getting better. We have a 2 year old daughter and it sucks not being able to take her to the park for weeks because it's scorching hot.
Other than that, we like the city, and especially our neighbourhood.
I have met many foreigners from Northern countries who made fun of siesta... until they stayed in Spain for a summer, then they understood it very quickly xD
I'd recommend Valencia in addition to Madrid. I can't say I enjoyed Barcelona that much, it felt too touristy. Valencia had a wonderful balance of tourism, low prices, food, and waterfront.
Honestly, they’re all great. Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Seville and Bilbao.
I had almost no idea about Spain before I moved to Europe and soon realised that it is a friendly place with amazing reasonably priced food and some of the most amazing artwork. Every new city has these qualities and adds its own stories and beautiful architecture.
Also Spain is to gin and tonic what New York is to pizza and Australia/New Zealand are to coffee: they did not invent it, but they certainly perfected it. a giant fish bowl of gin mare and good tonic water filled with ice and maybe some rosemary for scent.
It's cool to have a virtual tour of open gallery space, but it would be orders of magnitude cooler to have a virtual tour of the works in a museum's collection that are not on view.
Most museums are only able to show a few dozen or hundred works in their galleries at a time, but store thousands of works in their collection. In an effort to accommodate this reality, many museums publish a freely available database of their collection. There isn't really a standard practice for creating, maintaining, and publishing these databases, so it really depends on each museum's collections team to do that work; and it will always be a relatively low priority. Digital exhibitions could radically change that.
> The entire deposit collection of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen (more than 151,000 objects housed together, arranged in fourteen storage compartments with five different climates) is stored here and is publicly accessible, on a total floor area of 15,541 m2.
Apple has one of those tours for their museum.[1]
Apple used to be big on that. They called it "Quicktime VR"(1998) [2]
The main application today is real estate sales.[3]
I know that not everybody has time, money, opportunity, etc. to go to Del Prado to see art with their own eyes but I have to say that seeing photos on my monitor before and seeing it in reality were completely different and not not transferable experiences. The light, those details and often even size of the canvas which is measured in meters and not centimeters are all incredible. For example Las Meninas is basically 3x3 meters or you can easily spend 1 hour looking at The Garden of Earthly Delights by Bosch. I will remember this visit till the end of my life.
It’s not said enough:
Screens = tiny mass produced lights
Paintings = A masterful mix of usually expensive substances carefully selected for the unique way in which they reflect light.
I may be biaised but I believe this "tour" is not good. Not immersive enough. Just not really something we want as client.
- The moving/walking part is just bad. Even Matterport does much better with its technology.
I really wish these projects, usually financed partially by European grants and other such schemes (aka tax payers), would release the raw data and let people develop their own experience with it.
Open data from museums are the only way I can see it being archived for the long term benefit of society.
PS: why the downvotes? It's literally written at the end but there's no download link anywhere...
> Funded with the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRPP), Spain’s Next Generation EU financing and according to the initiatives within the component C.24.I3 Digitization and valorization of major cultural services, included in Prado Training as an Inclusive experience of visit.
Readit News
There are a couple of other museums well worth visiting near El Prado. El Prado can get very busy because it's on everybody's list of things to visit. I've been there on a quiet day at some point and it's very enjoyable. But when you have to queue up for 45 minutes just to get in, it's probably a lot less nice. Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum has a pretty amazing collection and is right across the street. And down the street is the Reina Sofia, which has a nice modern art collection (think lots of Miro, Picasso, Dali, etc.).
If you have time and a car, driving around Spain is very enjoyable. I've seen most of it's larger and smaller cities over the years.
+1. But the train, specially being in Madrid, is a very good alternative to the car to travel around Spain.
Also went West and caught a boat to Tangiers in Morocco for a day trip. It was my first time experiencing culture shock. Tangiers was so different from either America or Europe. I made friends with two Danish soldiers and the three of us explored the Casbah together. It was also the first (and last!) time that I ate a sheep's eyeball! Little kids everywhere were begging for money. I understood perfectly why they spoke to me in English. But when they found out my friends were from Denmark they switched to speaking perfect Danish! These kids knew a smattering of a dozen languages or more.
Deleted Comment
Sadly, Barcelona is a bit too hyped and gentrified. It suffers from the same kind of issues SF has.
Both are great in terms of access to an inexpensive talent pool.
We do have a river, but if it doesn't seem much to you, take the train south and in half an hour you reach Aranjuez:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aranjuez
There you have the Tagus river and gorgeous gardens.
Distances in Spain are different than in US. Some cities are connected from here in an interval of less than two hours (one-way) by fast train AVE so reserving one day to explore another city as a bonus is doable with some extra work. This comprises Valencia, Salamanca, Burgos or Cordoba. You could basically go from one point to the other coin of Iberia in a day by train if you don't mind to burn a day looking at the landscape. Or sleep in the train and wake up in a different coastal city in a different Sea. Is just a question of money and planning.
In the same way if you go to Barcelona I would strongly advise to explore near destinations in Pyrenees or the South of France also.
Other than that, we like the city, and especially our neighbourhood.
Nobody takes siestas in Spain but the elderly, children and people without A/C in hot zones in summer, and I suppose in some rural towns as well.
The trouble with Barcelona these days is the tourists have ruined it. Both the tourists themselves, and the city itself pandering to the tourists.
I avoid the place like the plague these days.
I had almost no idea about Spain before I moved to Europe and soon realised that it is a friendly place with amazing reasonably priced food and some of the most amazing artwork. Every new city has these qualities and adds its own stories and beautiful architecture.
Also Spain is to gin and tonic what New York is to pizza and Australia/New Zealand are to coffee: they did not invent it, but they certainly perfected it. a giant fish bowl of gin mare and good tonic water filled with ice and maybe some rosemary for scent.
James and Yoly really enjoy living here in Madrid, and they explain the good and the bad of our culture and customs. No bullsh*t, warts and all.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/@spainrevealed
I preferred it over Barcelona, too.
Avoid July and August, horrible heat and most people have left the city
Most museums are only able to show a few dozen or hundred works in their galleries at a time, but store thousands of works in their collection. In an effort to accommodate this reality, many museums publish a freely available database of their collection. There isn't really a standard practice for creating, maintaining, and publishing these databases, so it really depends on each museum's collections team to do that work; and it will always be a relatively low priority. Digital exhibitions could radically change that.
> The entire deposit collection of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen (more than 151,000 objects housed together, arranged in fourteen storage compartments with five different climates) is stored here and is publicly accessible, on a total floor area of 15,541 m2.
That's incredible.
[1] https://applemuseum360.com
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QuickTime_VR
[3] https://www.sothebysrealty.com/eng/sales/int/virtualtour3d-f...
- The zooming-on-painting part is good though.
The point : I am building a much more immersive technology . Here is an small example. https://free-visit.net/fr/demo01
If you like this visit, and if you know a museum who needs my immersive technology, please send me a mail, I would be glad : thierry.milard@gmail.com
Dead Comment
Open data from museums are the only way I can see it being archived for the long term benefit of society.
PS: why the downvotes? It's literally written at the end but there's no download link anywhere...
> Funded with the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRPP), Spain’s Next Generation EU financing and according to the initiatives within the component C.24.I3 Digitization and valorization of major cultural services, included in Prado Training as an Inclusive experience of visit.
That’s not to say they couldn’t do more - but it’s a very active area in many museums.
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Sorolla is the master of light. His paintings are stunning[2]
There are several virtual tours available online [3]
[1] https://www.cultura.gob.es/msorolla/inicio.html [2] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6c/Cosiendo... [3] https://www.cultura.gob.es/msorolla/exposicion/visita-virtua...