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Madrid may be the largest city in Spain and the place where the king and queen live, but to romantics, other locations are "more Spanish." These first-time travelers come unprepared for the skyscrapers of Madrid and other non-Hispanic touches. Here you'll find the best of Spanish art (in the Prado, the best of the nation's civic planning (boulevards and plazas), the key square in all of Spain (Plaza Mayor), the most important bull ring, and certainly the country's best cuisine. Madrid has been the capital of Spain since the time when Cervantes was writing Don Quixote (1557). It is one of the largest cities in Europe, with 5.1 million inhabitants. Its remarkable Prado Museum, which we've mentioned above, houses a renowned collection of art from the 12th to the 18th centuries; while in an annex, devoted to modern art, Picasso's Guernica attracts hundreds of visitors daily (except Mondays, when all museums here close). In cuisine, the local tastes range from superb home cooking (such as the Cocido Madrileno, a thick, tasty soup) to gourmet (like baby eels served in an olive oil and garlic sauce). Its home grown wines are aromatic and quite inexpensive; its famous sangria drink is red wine soaked with oranges, lemons and other fruit of the season, and always served in a pitcher. If the leitmotif of travel is personal contact with people, then Madrid's many hundreds of restaurants, bars and coffeeshops are an ideal medium for reaching this goal.
Barcelona is influenced by nearby France, whose border is less than a hundred miles away, Barcelona is widely acknowledged to be the intellectual capital of Spain, as liberal as Madrid is conservative, and with a liberal Catholic clergy whose positions are often dramatically opposed to those of right-wing bishops elsewhere. Its residents are avid music lovers and conversationalists, passionate theatergoers, delirious about the concerts and recitals in their stunning Palau (Palace) de la Musica (no other theater on earth is designed with such gaudy verve), and loudly patriotic--but only on behalf of Catalonia, not Spain. Repeatedly in conversations, they will depict the Catalan culture as broadly cosmopolitan and sophisticated, and compare it scornfully with the provincialism of, say, an Andalucia or other parts of Spain. More than 70% of all the books read in Spain are published in Barcelona |
