Couple of churches
I walked a loop around central Madrid today and was surprised to learn I no longer need my phone or a map to get around. Brain still works, I guess.
This is a three-quarters view of San Francisco El Grande showing its convex facade and tambour dome, which was the biggest in Spain at the time (1760s) and based on the one on the Pantheon in Rome.
Inside, the altar painting is by Goya. Photography isn't permitted, so I'll just say it shows St. Bernard of Siena standing on a rock with his arms outstreched and a shaft of light on his head, ministering to a dozen or so people. Stopping here was a nice interlude because there was a small string ensemble practicing with a vocalist ― something by Haydn or Monteverdi sounded like.
On my way out, my finger must have slipped or something because I snapped this image. The Lumix/Leica Summilux 15mm lens is such a trouper in low-light situations.
There's a creepy Franciscan seminary next door. ― sorry, that's redundant, isn't it? ― but it has these trees on the sidewalk outside that are dropping purple flowers on the first day of October. In the background a pickup soccer game is going on. These kids are very skilled ― we're in Madrid, after all ― but their goals don't have nets, so when somebody scores, there's a delay while one of the players runs over to the seminary to retrieve the ball.
The other church I visited today was the Almudena Cathedral, built on the site of an 11th-century mosque. I think I'll have more to say about this later, but remind me if I forget. Even as I type this, I don't know much about this church, except that it was finished fairly recently and was consecrated by Pope John Paul II in the 1990s. Because of the number of historic sites in the vicinity, I think there was a move afoot to call the area the "Acropolis of Madrid," but I don't think it caught on.
If the pope has visited your church, they never let you forget it.
As soon as I walked in, the church seemed new ― pew cushions, motion detectors, recessed lighting.
And then I walked and walked some more, stopped for some morcilla and white wine, and talked to a fellow diner about Spanish history ― but you know all that.
A friendly guy with a huge wildlife-photography rig took my picture in the Plaza Mayor. I don't know, I thought it might be useful to prove I'm actually in Madrid and not in Aruba posting pictures I found on the internet. "The picture is very clear," he said, handing me back my camera. "Prime glass," he added.
Gotta admit, that felt pretty good.
