Nineteenth update on pilgrimage 2021

 Hello, everyone. 

In these our last few days we walked over to the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, a really wonderful art museum in Madrid, and also to the Museo Arqueologico Nacional, a cultural-historical museum. We have visited both of these before. We discovered that the art collections at the Thyssen have been rotated and that part of the MAN is undergoing "obras" and not on display now.

This painting of the Visitation (second joyful mystery of the rosary) is unusual in showing the developing babies in their wombs. 

There were a lot of Dutch paintings on display, but most of the beautiful still lifes that I remember and liked were not on display. My personal favorite,  Christus Resurrexit, was still there and it was interesting to reflect on the difference between the actual, huge, painting and my somewhat smaller print. The real one just glows more. 

I learned that ostrich eggs were a thing with the ancient Phoenician colonists, that built ports in Hispania in the centuries before Rome moved into the peninsula in a big way.

We didn't spend tons of time in the MAN this time, as it was late in the day, but it was interesting and educational. 

In the Canicula, a cool memory of Bilbao

Hello, everyone.

We are indeed in the depths of the Canicula, the "dog days" of summer, with highs nearing 100F many days. Nights are often close to 80F. This too shall pass, as the old saying goes.

It's a comfort during these hot days to look back at pictures from our Camino earlier this summer. This scene in particular is cooling:

Though not as frequently photographed as Flower Puppy, it is just perfect to look at in the middle of August in Texas.

It is another of the outdoor art installations at the Guggenheim modern art museum in Bilbao.

In Santiago, 2nd day

Hello, everyone.
Today, one of our planned rest days, we put walking shoes back on our feet and went discovering things.
We visited the church and museum of the Benedictinas, San Paio Antealtares, on the Rua Sacra. The church was using a tabernacle veil--a cloth in the seasonal color that covers the Tabernacle. There were a number of Benedictine saints depicted in paintings in their museum.
We went to the Cathedral Museum, something we had never done before. It is in parts, and the ticket gets you into various things. (Pilgrims who have their credencial get a discount.)
We went to the train station. Yes, it still has about a hundred and ten steps to get down to the actual station level.
Then we walked over to Sta. Maria de Saa, the parish church of the city. This is one of the parts included in the Cathedral Museum ticket. They close at 2 pm for siesta but we saw a number of interesting things there.

These buttresses were added to counteract the soggy soil in the area, which is near the river

The altar of the church. There is a remnant of medieval painting on the dome above the altar.

And for the capstone, we took the rooftop tour of the Cathedral roof. This was very interesting. Also quite athletic as there were many, many steps to ascend and descend.
Instead of eating formal dinner we ate tapas at Abaste (sp?) which is adjacent to the mercado of Santiago. We shared some really wonderful food there, a "ceviche" which was really a Spanish version of sea bass sashimi, and grilled octopus. These tapas filled us up and we called it a day.

Santander

Hello, everyone.
We left Guemes about 7:30 this morning. After Father Enrique and his volunteers worked so hard to put out bread, some kind of nut bar (?) And trimmings like jam, hot milk pitchers, hot water and tea bags, and coffee, we had to spend a minute in the dining room with them.
Father Enrique's stories about how the albergue came to be, and some of his family history, were very interesting. He also showed route information on the map to everyone.
We mostly took the coastal walk today--didn't get the tablet out to make path pictures, sorry--and most of it was lovely. Only a couple of muddy bits. Then we walked on the sand of the beach of Somo for maybe a quarter mile or so, until the beach access just before the last house. There was a bar there. In my opinion those folks have a license to print money. They certainly sold us some coffee and tea and a slice of tortilla with tuna and tomato on top. There are no other bars on this beach, and it looked like that was the only beach access, too.
We took the ferry ride across to Santander. This city is reasonably big.

What do you do if the connected building in the middle of the row is wrecked? The others were depending on it. Answer, you leave a bunch of beams in between and add some metal braces to keep it all up. We have seen this solution in other places, too, here in Spain.
Tomorrow we will head towards Santillana del Mar. As it will be Tuesday I hope museums will be open. (Today no museums in Santander were open. It's Monday.)
Ultreia.

Lisbon, part 3

Hello, everyone.

The other big museums/sights we saw in Lisbon were both on the same day, thanks to the city bus system.

First we took the Metro to the nearest stop to the Tile Museum. Then we asked directions and started walking. We were supposed to look for a grocery store sign: Lidl, which is right in front of the museum. Well, we walked right past it, and most of the way to the Parque des Nacoes. Then we figured out that we'd missed something. But we saw things en route, too.

Public art. 

Camino waymarker. That rough stuff around it is pretty standard for Portuguese pavement, too.

We did get ourselves straightened out, and by studying the maps in bus stops discovered that it is easy to get from the Tile Museum on one side of the city to the Jeronymite Monastery on the far side of it. And we were able to use our pre-paid metro system passes to pay the fare, too!

These are only two of the many, many works of art in the Tile Museum. It also includes a chapel--it was apparently a royal residence at one time. The bottom tile mural is in the chapel.

The monastery of the Jeronymite order is in a nearby beach town to Lisbon (basically a suburb) but even though it's very near by there was only some damage from the 1755 earthquake. (As opposed to the near total destruction to low lying areas of the main city from the quake and tsunami!) They did lose the railing on the choir loft. I didn't notice any visible cracking during the tour, so either it was fixed or, more likely, they got lucky and didn't have a whole lot of damage there.

The elaborate decorations on the front of the monastery are famous.

Tomb of Vasco da Gama!

Half of a confessional

A major part of the apostolate of the Jeronymite priests was to hear the confessions of seamen. They had enclosed confessionals in the church, with a little slit for air, and each one was matched to a booth that opened in the cloister for the priest to be in. (These are the only enclosed confessionals I have ever seen in the Iberian peninsula. All the rest have been like fancy wardrobe closets, with a booth for the priest and kneeler on the outside for the penitent. If you've been to St. Peter's in Rome, you've seen the design.)

The order eventually faded and now the monastery is under the care of the government museum people.

An undiscovered gem

Hello, everyone.

This morning, after a determined (not very successful) attempt to sleep in, we walked the mile or so over to the Museo Archeologico Nacional. (Think about a quarter mile from the Prado.) This hasn't got the fame of the others, and the tickets were a real bargain, but it was a really great museum. We learned more than we thought there could be about Spanish history. As the introduction display says, the entire peninsula is an archeological site. They're constantly finding remnants of prior cultures when they put a shovel in g he ground to do just about anything. Some is even pre-neanderthal, it's so old.

On the way back, after being immersed in the museum for about 6 hours, we stopped in to the Museo Thysen-Bornemyssa. (Spelling not guaranteed!) We discovered that the painting I like so much isn't in the Prado collection after all, it's in the Thyssen. So my sweetie took me by the Thyssen gift shop-no joy- and then we ordered from the POD kiosk at the museum.

Later on we went out for food and I found that rabbit in gravy is really good.

I thought the reflections on this staircase were neat.

We saw some cool buildings after the sun finally set.