You can get from Cordoba to Madrid in two hours on a high-speed train.

Or, as we did, you can spend less money, and have a much slower but still very comfortable journey, leaving Cordoba at 0950, arriving in Alcazar de San Juan at about 1300, leaving again at 1355, and getting into Madrid at about 1530.

It's a very interesting route, taking you through a number of contrasting types of Spanish scenery.







The first leg is on one of the famous Talgo tilting trains, which do indeed provide a really smooth ride.


We planned only two nights in Madrid, so we're staying really close to Puerta de Atocha station, in one of the multitude of traditional apartment buildings in the area.






Why only two nights for such a vibrant city? Well, we've spent a lot of time in well-known places, so we wanted to leave a few more days for Zaragoza, which is (we think) a little less on the tourist radar. Maybe three and four would have been better than two and five, but hey...

The way to deal with a short time in a capital city (in PT's humble opinion) is to be very selective.

So yesterday (and, briefly, on the way back today), we covered some of the famous park, El Retiro.






And today, we did two things.

Firstly, in the early light of Saturday morning, when not that many people are out and about, and the wind is rattling the leaves from last year that still cling to the trees, we walked round some of the famous sights.









Secondly, we visited the Museo del Romanticismo.











I wrote my undergrad thesis on German Romanticism (and its connections with French Symbolism). So it was interesting not only to revisit some familiar old themes, but also to be introduced to Spanish elements that I had very little idea of.

Costumbrismo, for example... This is "an art movement in the painting of local daily existence, characteristics, and traditions, in nineteenth-century Spain and Latin America".

It connects with both Realism and Romanticism, "sharing with the Romantics an interest in personal expression of humanity", and with the Realists the goal of precise representation.

"Emerging out of the enthusiasm of Romantics in the folk life of common people, Costumbrismo was a move in the direction of a practical depiction of the world, communicating an upsurge of national consciousness and a yearning to convey features of the general population's life, with a glorification of patriarchal ethics and traditions."

It also responded to foreigners' desire for supposedly archetypal Spanish images...



Mariano Jose de Larra was also a figure who was unfamiliar to me. The "archetypal Romantic in his adolescence: liberal, rebellious, modern and poetic", Larra went on to become a highly innovative journalist. His suicide, however, on account of a failed relationship, made him "a truncated Romantic hero after all, who stirred tears of too true melancholy among the many Spanish poets that attended the funeral in his honour".


Back in my undergraduate days, I hadn't caught up with the concept of orientalism (Edward Said's notable study came out half-way through my degree). But as the museum exhibits made clear, orientalism and exoticism formed a very perceptible strand of the movement.



Romanticism always attracted pushback, cogently illustrated here:


So, all in all, it's been a rich 36 hours. Muchas gracias, Madrid.