Spain 2010 part 3

This series of photographs covers three different small excursions: Madrid's Rastro, the art museum Reina Sofia and a visit to the Naval Museum. The Rastro is the most popular open-air flee market in Madrid. It is held every Sunday morning and is located along a series of streets that are blocked off to accommodate hundreds of booths. Most of the streets are shaded so the morning hours provide a pleasant temperature to shop around the streets. However, given the popularity of the Rastro it is also common to have pick pockets "shopping" as well.

The museum Reina Sofia, named after the current queen of Spain, is a modern art museum and contains such artists as Picasso, Joan Miró and Salvador Dalí among many others. The visit was enjoyable, particularly as we tried to decipher some of the works of Salvador Dalí. Its exciting to be able to get right up close to some of the world's greatest masterpieces, however, there was also a security guard present to make sure you didn't touch the painting. Spain's most prized modern art possession is a piece by Picasso called Guernica. The painting is enormous and depicts the suffering of the town of Guernica after being bombed by Adolf Hitler during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). You're not allowed to take pictures so I took one looking in from another room. The other paintings have a yellow tint because you're not allowed to use flash when taking pictures...Enjoy!

In the Naval Museum you experience the history of the navy as told through paintings, weapons and charts. Each room details a different era in history, and you start with the 15th century and pass through different rooms until you reach the present day. It also includes a room dedicated to the Spanish-American War of 1898. Perhaps the most prized possession of the museum is the oldest map of the Americas made by Juan de la Cosa in 1500.