The Majesty of Madrid

Hi, I'm Rick Steves, back with more of the best of Europe. This time, we're in Madrid: Palaces, "paseo," and perhaps Europe's finest ham: "jamón. " Thanks for joining us.

Madrid was once the capital of the mightiest empire on earth. It's studded with riches from those glory days. We'll experience the majesty of its palaces, museums, and we'll enjoy today's Madrid at its fun-loving best.

We'll marvel at lavish palaces, ponder the Prado's evocative art, belly up to a bull bar, day-trip to Spain's imposing Civil War Memorial, stare down a flamenco dancer, delve deep into Picasso's greatest masterpiece, and munch on pigs' ears during a tapas crawl. In the southwest of Europe, Spain dominates the Iberian Peninsula. Its capital, Madrid, sits high in the center.

Madrid's core is bounded by the Royal Palace on the west and the magnificent Prado Museum in the east. The Plaza Mayor and Puerto del Sol mark the center. From here we side-trip to El Escorial and the Valley of the Fallen.

Madrid is the hub of Spain. This vibrant capital, Europe's highest at 2000 feet, has a population of over four million. Most of the city is modern urban sprawl surrounding an intact, easy- to-navigate historic center.

We'll limit our visit to this old core. Madrid is livable and fun to visit. Former parking lots are once again grand and people-friendly squares.

Short posts keep cars off the sidewalks. And the fine old buildings show off their original elegance. The historic center is enjoyably covered on foot.

No major sight is more than a 20-minute walk or a five-minute cab ride from Madrid's lively main square, the Puerto del Sol. It's a hub for the Metro, buses, city celebrations and a busy pedestrian shopping zone. And in the old center, it seems there's a surprise around every corner.

My Spanish friend and fellow tour guide Carlos Galvin is joining us to share a local's insight into Madrid's culture and food. Carlos is taking me to a place famous for food Spaniards are crazy about. If Spain had a national food, it would probably be "jamón.

" That's ham. The eatery, called the Museum of Ham, is tastefully decorated, unless you're a vegetarian or a pig. This cheap and cheery stand-up bar is an assembly line of meaty treats.

"Chin chin! " "Chin chin! " "Jamón!

" "Jamón serrano. " So in Spain, you don't just say "ham? " No, we have different kinds.

We've got all these different kinds there, like, for example, "jamón granadino" or "bellota extra," or Salamanca. You know, the different origins. So what do we have here?

So here we have a regular "jamón serrano" and we have "ibérico. " This one, the pig has been killed after three months and has been eating just basic pig food. And this one has been eating acorns.

Acorns? Acorns. Yeah.

They're in freedom in the fields and they're eating the acorn. And this is much more expensive? Yeah.

If this cost $3, this would cost like $12. Can you taste the difference? I can, yeah.

Oh, yeah. This is delicious. Acorns.

Yeah. Happy pigs, running free in the mountains. That's right.

Plaza Mayor is a stately, traffic-free chunk of 17th- century Spain. Whether hanging out with old friends, enjoying a cup of coffee or finding a treasure at the Sunday coin market, it's an inviting place for people to gather. The square is filled with emblems of Spain's powerful past.

Bronze reliefs under the lampposts show how upon this stage, much of Spanish history was played out. The square hosted bullfights. It was the scene of generations of Carnavale gaiety.

And during the Inquisition, many suspected heretics were tried here and punished; in this case, publicly strangled. Thankfully, the brutality of the Inquisition is long gone. But one brutal spectacle that survives today, anchored deep in the psyche of Spain, is the bullfight.

Whether you actually go to a bullfight or not is entirely up to you. But anyone, for a quick sense of the action, can pop into one of Madrid's many bull bars. [ Guitar chords ] Aficionados gather at a bar like this after fights, or to watch one on TV.

This bar is a temple to bullfighting. If you like bullfighting, how do you justify it with the animal? How do you excuse it?

It's an art. Bull fighting is an art. It's not, it's not about the cruelty.

It's just an art. It's a whole aesthetic. You're fighting against an animal that is 500 or 600 kilos, and there is this guy right in front of him with a cape and with a sword and he's brave enough and he's wearing this suit and people are so supportive of him.

They wanna see him, like, doing well. So some bullfighters are actually very popular, like heroes, or popular heroes? Oh, absolutely.

Rick, look at these photographs. I think they prove that the matador does not always win. [ Speaking Spanish ] He's saying Hemmingway was at that bull fight.

Hemmingway was there. Hemmingway saw Liston. .

. Cordobés kill. .

. ? Die in the hands of Cordobés with Franco in the audience.

Franco and Hemmingway saw the "Babe Ruth of bull fighting," El Cordobés Exactly. Kill Liston? That's right.

A few blocks away stands one of Europe's most stunning palaces. Madrid's Royal Palace was built by Phillip V in the 1700s. He was born in Versailles, and while he ruled Spain for 40 years, he stayed very French.

The palace was designed to be Phillip's Versailles, to help establish a new dynasty, the Bourbons, and it's big, over 2,000 rooms. With acres of lavish paintings and tapestries, a king's ransom of chandeliers. .

. Priceless treasures and bronze decor covered in gold leaf. There are over 150 fancy clocks in the palace, all in working order.

Portraits of past royal residents these are by the great Spanish painter Goya decorate the walls. In the lavish throne room golden lions tread red velvet, symbolizing the might of the monarchy, whose coat of arms incorporated many realms and whose empire spanned both hemispheres. Above the throne, the ceiling fresco by Tiepolo celebrates that vast Spanish Empire, upon which the sun never set.

A rainbow leads to a macho red-caped conquistador and American Indians, just some more distant Spanish subjects. Phillip V, the grandson of France's King Louis XIV, began the Bourbon dynasty, which continued into the 21st century with the popular King Juan Carlos. The palace is still used for formal state ceremonies and receptions.

The king throws dinner parties for up to 150 guests at this bowling lane-sized table. The king's front yard? It's enjoyed by all the people of Madrid.

And this plaza is another example of how, throughout Europe, energetic governments are turning formerly car-congested wastelands into charming public spaces. Madrid's mayor is nicknamed "the mole," for all the digging he's done. Where's all the traffic?

Under your feet. And so is the subway. Madrid's subway is simple, speedy and cheap.

Ticket ten-packs save money and can be shared by several travelers. The city's broad streets can be hot and exhausting. A subway trip of even a stop or two saves time and energy.

To transfer, check a map and simply follow the signs. Green "Salida" signs point to the exit. For dinner in Madrid, it's a movable feast.

For maximum fun, people and atmosphere, do the "tapa tango. " It's a time-honored tradition going from one bar to the next, munching, drinking, and socializing. When it comes to variety, Madrid is Spain's tapas capital.

Grab a toothpick and stab something strange. While Spaniards don't eat dinner until 9:00 or 10:00, with a meal like this, I can eat early and still go local. For starters, we're going for one of Madrid's quirkiest snacks, and this spot is named for it, "la oreja de oro," sautéed pigs' ears.

Pigs' ears are a favorite here, and Jamie is a frantic one-man show who somehow gets everything just right. [ Speaking Spanish ] See, this wine is like house-made wine from the northwest of Spain, from Galicia. Okay, and it's cloudy a little bit.

Yeah, it's a little bit cloudy so you do not see the poor quality. [ Laughs ] Yay, all right. "Gracias.

" So this is? Yeah, so this is pig's ear. This is the cartilage, actually.

This is sautéed with a little bit of olive oil, Spanish paprika and parsley. And that's actually the cartilage? That's right.

Mmm. Crunchy. Yeah.

Wow. Pigs' ears. I never thought I'd be eating actual pigs' ears.

Yeah. Just up the street, Casa Toni is run by. .

. Toni. He's popular for his refreshing gazpacho, the cold tomato and garlic soup.

Carlos, the gazpacho is really refreshing in the summer, right? Yeah. Gazpacho is like a vegetable soup with a tomato base.

But cold. And it's very refreshing. Yeah, it's cold.

It's nice, yeah. At Toni's, you can have "huevos con chorizo," "patatas bravas," mystery meats, and the house vermouth. Don't worry about paying until you're ready to go.

Then ask for "la cuenta," the bill. Next, it's La Casa del Abuelo, packed with seafood lovers savoring sizzling plates of tasty shrimp and prawns. I like "gambas al ajillo," shrimp sautéed with garlic, and "gambas a la plancha," grilled shrimp.

A glass of the house red wine, right out of the keg, is incredibly cheap. The litter on the floor is normal. That's where people traditionally toss their trash and shells.

For a sweet, late-night finale, enjoy pudding -- like hot chocolate and churros. Churros are the favorite local doughnut. Dunk and chat, recalling highlights of the day and looking forward to tomorrow.

We're side-tripping, a short drive into the hills from Madrid, to San Lorenzo de El Escorial. The town has charm, but everybody visits for this: Its sprawling palace. In the mid 1500s, King Phillip II needed a suitably grand palace to establish his family dynasty, the Spanish branch of the Habsburgs.

He also needed a headquarters from which to run a strong, centralized Spanish state. Phillip ruled his huge empire, which stretched from Mexico to Manila, from here. El Escorial was built during the Reformation, a time when Catholic Spain was defending the Church against the Protestant "heretics.

" The enigmatic, introverted and extremely Catholic King Phillip II directed the Counter Reformation from this spot. Today it's packed with history and art, offering an evocative trip back to Spain's most fascinating age. El Escorial was more than an impressive palace for a divine monarch.

It was a grand mausoleum for Spain's royal family. It was a monastery to provide constant prayer for the king's soul. And it was a religious school designed to teach and embrace humanism in a way that fit the Catholic faith.

King Phillip built in austerity: Plain white walls and bare-bones chandeliers. His simple bed, with a mattress that's not even queen-size, came with a view of the high altar in the basilica just next door. The basilica, the architectural and spiritual heart of the complex, is dedicated to the martyr St.

Laurence. The altar features a painting of the flame-engulfed grill with St. Laurence meeting his fiery death.

Downstairs, the Royal Pantheon is the gilded resting place of four centuries of Spanish kings and queens. There's a strict filing system. The first and greatest, Charles V, and his queen, flank the altar on the top shelf.

Their son, Phillip II, rests below Charles and opposite his wife, and so on. Because kings might have married more than once, to make it here, a woman needed to be both queen and mother of a king. The immense library shows that knowledge was a priority for the Spanish royalty.

The ceiling celebrates the seven classical disciplines with a burst of color. The elaborate model, constructed after the age of Copernicus, insists on proving that the solar system revolves, unmistakably, around the earth. As you leave, a plaque above the door warns you'll be excommunicated if you take a book without checking it out.

Who needs late fees when you hold the keys to eternal damnation? The emotional intensity of Spanish culture can be experienced in its royal palaces. But it's most riveting in the music and dance of its people.

It's time for flamenco. [ Tapping and snapping ] While Seville is the home of flamenco, Madrid draws Spain's top artists. The singing and dancing gives you an exotic whiff of the Arabic and Gypsy influences on Spanish culture.

Some shows are sultry and serious. Others are light and designed mostly for tour groups. And some bars are more contemporary, catering to young locals who come out for their favorite acts.

[ Speaking Spanish ] I prefer a hotel right in the town center, like Hotel Europa. This place is popular among travelers with my guidebooks for its warm and helpful welcome. Upstairs there's a red-carpet charm with plush halls, a velvety lounge and basic rooms with views overlooking Madrid's shopping street action.

Its convenient cafeteria is just right for breakfast or a relaxing coffee break. For another thought-provoking excursion, we're side-tripping from Madrid up into the Guadarrama Mountains. A 500-foot-tall granite cross marks the Valley of the Fallen, an immense and powerful underground monument to the victims of Spain's devastating Civil War.

In the late 1930s, a million Spaniards died as conservative Catholics in the military slugged it out against secular democrats. Unlike America's Civil War, which pitted north against south, this war was between classes and ideologies. It divided every village.

The right-wing Fascists ultimately won and Franco ruled Spain as its dictator until 1975. [ Somber music ] The sorrowful pietà draped over the entrance must have had a powerful impact on mothers who came here to remember their fallen sons. A solemn silence fills the basilica.

As if measuring sorrow in distance, this 870-foot-long chamber is far longer than any church in Europe. The line of torch-like lamps adds to the somber ambiance. Franco's prisoners, the enemies of the right, were put to work digging this memorial out of solid rock.

Franco's grave takes center stage. Some Spaniards come here to honor him. Others come to be sure he's still dead.

But interred here, in chapels flanking the altar, are the remains of tens of thousands, victims from both sides, who lost their lives in Spain's civil war. With every visit, I stare into the eyes of those angels with swords and think about all the "heroes" who keep dying "for God and country" at the request of the latter. Another place to remember the victims of Spain's civil war is back in Madrid at the Centro Reina Sofia.

This modern art museum has a fine collection of paintings, but we're heading directly to the epic work showing the harsh realities of modern war. In 1937, Guernica, a village in northern Spain, was the target of the world's first aerial saturation bombing. It was kind of a dress rehearsal for the horrors of World War II, approved by Franco, carried out by Hitler.

The Spanish artist Pablo Picasso heard the shocking news and immediately set to work sketching the destruction as he imagined it. In a matter of weeks, he wove these bomb-shattered shards into a large mural called "Guernica. " For the first time, the world could see the destructive force of the rising Fascist movement, a prelude to World War II.

It's as if shards from the bombing are pasted onto the canvas. A woman looks to the sky, horses scream, a soldier falls, body shattered, sword broken. A wounded woman flees a burning house.

A bull, symbol of Spain, ponders it all, watching over a mother and her dead baby, a modern pietà. Picasso's painting threw a stark light on the brutality of Hitler and Franco. "Guernica" caused an immediate sensation and with each passing year, and war, it seems more prophetic.

Picasso put a human face on collateral damage. Today Spain enjoys its peace and prosperity. That's particularly clear at the Retiro Park.

It's made to order for a green and breezy escape from the city. During weekends, it becomes a carnival of fun. [ Speaking Spanish ] No!

[ Clapping ] Madrid's much-loved "Central Park" offers splendid picnicking, rowboating and people watching. [ Screams and laughter ] [ Speaking Spanish ] Opposite the park, the Prado Museum holds my favorite collection of paintings anywhere. The paintings give an eye-pleasing overview of Spain's rich history, from the Golden Age through its slow fade.

In the 1500s, Spain was Europe's superpower, flush with gold from newly discovered America and ruled by this man, Emperor Charles V. Here the great Venetian artist Titian portrays Charles as he was, the most powerful man in the world. Charles' son, Phillip II, though very religious, collected a bevy of sensual Venetian paintings.

In Titian's "Venus and the Organ Player," we see the conflicts these people struggled with, torn between high cultural pursuits, as symbolized here by music, and more worldly pleasures. "Danae," also by Titian, is a virtual Renaissance "Miss August. " Money falling from the sky made royals and aristocrats, the people who commissioned this kind of art, feel their wealth was blessed by God.

Hieronymous Bosch, who painted 500 years ago and seems radical even today, gives all this hedonism a different spin. His "Garden of Earthly Delights," a three-paneled altar piece that actually hung in the king's bedroom, shows where all this worldly temptation ultimately leads. First, man and woman are born, innocent in the garden of Eden, blessed by a kind God.

Then foolish people chase after earthly delights, a pursuit that is ultimately a vicious cycle. They're lured by the world's pleasures: eating, drinking, sex. Two lovers are suspended in a bubble.

And in the third panel, the bubble pops. These party animals are heading straight to hell, a burning post-apocalyptic wasteland, where sinners are led off to eternal torment. Every sinner gets his just desserts.

Gluttons are themselves consumed. Good-time musicians are tortured by their own instruments. Gamblers have their party forever crashed.

And a lecher gets sexually harassed by a pig-faced nun. In the center of it all, a face peers out of this bizarre nightmare, a self-portrait of the artist: Bosch. Starting in the 1600s, Spain entered a long, slow period of decline.

But its wealthy court continued to finance great art. Perhaps the most loved painting in all the Prado is "Las Meninas" by Diego Velázquez. Velázquez takes us behind the scenes as he paints a portrait of the king and queen.

The artist paints himself at work, along with a princess, who's watching her mom and dad pose. She's joined by her servants, the "meninas. " In this wonderfully 3-D painting, the unique perspective is that of the king and the queen as they pose.

In fact, they can be seen in the mirror at the back of the room. By 1800, Spain was no longer a world power, but it continued to produce great artists. Francisco de Goya was Spain's official court painter.

He dutifully portrayed the king and the queen in all their royal finery. But many see Goya becoming disenchanted with his patrons. Here in these vacant faces he reveals the ineptitude of the royal family.

Goya's painting called "The Second of May" recalls how Spain hoped the ideals of Revolutionary France would spread, bringing democracy to Spain. But when Napoleon invaded, their hopes were dashed. On May 2, 1808, Madrid's working people staged a protest.

French soldiers, with their Egyptian mercenaries, slashed through the crowds and arrested the ringleaders. The next day -- this painting's called "The Third of May" -- the French began reprisals. Ignoring the rebels' passionate pleas, a faceless firing squad mows them down without mercy.

Goya, disillusioned by all the senseless violence, portrayed common people as the victims of war. Thankfully, stepping out of the Prado, it's a bright and happy day in Madrid, which seems determined to celebrate its freedom and enjoy life to its fullest. While Spain remembers its rich and poignant history, and shares it well with visitors, the focus of today seems to be on living well.

After every trip to this exciting city, the impression I take home is that of a thriving people with an enduring culture, which really knows how to dance. Madrid, permeated with passion, from its grand history to its love of life today. Let's explore more of Europe together again soon.

Until then, I'm Rick Steves. Keep on travelin'. "Hasta luego!

" Got that wind. Calm down! In the mid 1500s, okay.

Ahh! Aghh! Ha, ha, ha!

Let's explore more of Europe again soon. Until then, I'm, I'm Rick Steves. Keep on travelin'.