One of the highlights of sightseeing in Madrid is its excellent art museums. We purchased the “art walk” ticket (in advance, of course), which would allow you to gain access to the Prado, the Thyssen-Bornemisza and the Reina Sofia museums in one day for a pretty decent discount.  Purchasing regular priced tickets for all three museums would cost a total of 40 Euros.  The Art Walk ticket costs 32 Euros, and you can purchase it off of any of the museum’s websites. When we were in Madrid in June, we spent one morning visiting the Prado and the Thyssen-Bornemisza museums.  

The Prado was about a 5 minute walk from our hotel, which was super convenient.  The museum itself is surrounded by lush greenery and trees, and you could almost miss it from the other side of the main boulevard, named, appropriately, Paseo del Prado.  When we arrived around 10am there was a line of about 20 or so people waiting to purchase tickets.  Again, purchase your tickets in advance to these places so you don’t waste a lot of time waiting in line!  We had our Art Walk tickets, so we were able to go straight to the ticket booth to get them stamped and then we walked up the stairs into the main entrance of the museum.  

The Prado is very large, but not so large that you cannot see the main highlights of the museum in an hour or so.  It’s nothing like the Louvre in Paris or the Met in New York.  I would say it is more along the lines of the Art Institute in Chicago.  Of course, our first stop was Caravaggio’s “David and Goliath” painting. I was struck by how young David looked and how beautifully his strong, yet boyish arms were painted.  Most of the paintings at the Prado are older than 1800, which is not typically my bag, but I love the Goya Black Paintings (which were done in the early part of the 1800s). I remember seeing them when I visited the Prado back in 2006, and was excited to see them again and show the kids how creepy some of these paintings are. The Prado has a really massive collection of Goya and other Spanish artists, which is the primary focus of the museum.  They have  few really nice El Grecos as well. If you are not super into pre-impressionist art, though, you could probably come here and see some of the highlights in an hour or less.  

We then walked over to the Thyssen-Bornemisza museum, which is much smaller than The Prado, but has a much wider range of art from Medieval to Contemporary.  I absolutely loved this collection, and would have liked to spend quite a bit more time here, but the kids were really fading at this point.  Our main goal, again, was to see their Caravaggio, and St. Catherine of Alexandria was our favorite painting of the trip.  I am working on putting together a page on this site all about our worldwide hunt for Caravaggio paintings, and you’ll see some more descriptions and thoughts there.  I expect to have it up in the next few weeks!

Apart from St. Catherine, I loved the range of styles of paintings on view a this museum.  There are some excellent impressionist works by Monet and van Gogh and others.  There were also some excellent works ranging from El Greco to Lichtenstein.  This museum was definitely more my speed, and I would highly recommend not skipping it if you have a chance to come here while in Madrid.  For me, I could have spent several hours here.  It all depends on what you like, though, so plan accordingly, and get your tickets in advance!