Spain Guide
Madrid
Museo del Prado
Opening time: Tues– Sun 9am–8pm; Jan 6, Dec 24 & Dec 31 9am–2pm; closed Jan 1, Good Friday, May 1 & Dec 25
Price: €6 (supplement for some temporary exhibitions), free Tues– Sat 6–8pm, Sun 5–8pm; Paseo del Arte, combined with Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza and Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, €14.40
Website: www.museodelprado.es
One of the world's oldest and greatest collections of art in the world, the Museo del Prado is Madrid's premier attraction. Open to the public since 1819, it centres on the finest works collected by Spanish royalty. Finding enough space to display the collection has always been a problem, but the €152 million Rafael Moneo-designed extension, which includes a stylish glass-fronted building incorporating the eighteenth-century cloisters of the San Jerónimo church, has finally been opened. The new wing houses the restaurant and café areas, an expanded shop, an auditorium, temporary exhibition spaces, restoration and conservation workshops and a new sculpture gallery.
The museum's highlights are its early Flemish collection – including almost all of Bosch's best work – and, of course, its incomparable display of Spanish art, in particular that of Velázquez (including Las Meninas), Goya (including the Majas and the Black Paintings) and El Greco. There's also a huge section of Italian painters (Titian, notably) collected by Carlos V and Felipe II, both great patrons of the Renaissance, and an excellent collection of seventeenth-century Flemish and Dutch pictures gathered by Felipe IV, including Rubens' Three Graces. Even in a full day you couldn't hope to do justice to everything here, and it's perhaps best to make a couple of more focused visits. A lunchtime visit is often a good plan if you want to avoid the worst of the crowds and tour groups.
The museum is laid out according to national schools. Start on the ground floor for a chronological tour spanning the twelfth to sixteenth centuries, while the first floor will take you on to the seventeenth century and beyond, including the main Spanish collections.