We are surrounded by churches in this old section of Madrid. Our place is on the fourth floor and we can see the tops of three churches, one basilica and one cathedral. We are quite happy with the place. It’s quiet at night, there are cafes nearby and grocery stores. When we step outside in the morning we hear tour guides pointing out the “oldest church in Madrid, San Nicolas.” We have not seen the inside of it yet, it always seems to be closed. We will head up to San Sebastián in a few days and eventually return to Madrid so we’ve been scoping out other neighborhoods. We walked up to Universidad, the college section, and then Malasaña, both felt really comfortable. We found too many young people in Chueca. Salesas and Justicia were low key and just right so we’ll look into renting a place there when we return.
Years ago we bought a Jose Guerrero print at Antonio Machón Gallery and we stop back whenever we are in town. Antonio recently passed and his wife, Margarita, is in the process of retiring. She was boxing up the artwork when we stopped in today. We chatted (Margarita y Margarita en Español while I watched the animation) for an hour or so and then she invited us to her art filled place for coffee and pastry and more conversation. In our last visit Margarita recommended the Abstract Art Museum in Cuenca and we loved that. We told her we were headed up to San Sebastián to see the Chillida Museum and she showed us her Chillida pieces and then gave us the catalog for Chillida’s last show (while he was still alive) which was in her gallery. She highly recommended the sculpture museum in Valladolid so that city has been added to our agenda.
Margarita told us Chillida was a goalie for a team in San Sebastián before turning to sculpture.
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