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Archive for the ‘Culture’ Category

The Teatro Real (literally Royal Theatre) or simply El Real (as it is known colloquially), is a major opera house located in Madrid, Spain.

Europe is literally littered with palaces spanning the medieval era and beyond and Spain is no exception to this trend. However, Read the rest of this entry »

The hallmark of any great city is its urban park! Commonly located at the center of its core, urban parks play a significant role in providing traffic-choked cities with much-needed green lungs. As well as recreation, sporting and cultural venues for residents and visitors alike. Here’s a look at some of the larger urban parks from across the world, as seen in through the lens of Google Earth.

The Buen Retiro Park (Jardines del Buen Retiro or Parque del Buen Retiro, literally “Gardens” or “Park of the Pleasant Retreat”, or simply El Retiro) is the largest park of the city of Madrid, Spain.

The Parque del Buen Retiro is a spectacular urban oasis of 1.4 km2 (350 acres) ( 130 hectares) park of aromatic bay leaf trees, ponds, rose gardens, stunning fountains and museums, at the edge of the city center, very close to the Puerta de Alcalá and not far from the Prado Museum. The Retiro Park features the former grounds of Real Sitio del Buen Retiro Palace, a 17th century weekend palace of King Philips IV. Although the original palace has since been torn down, two remaining palace buildings remain within the park, which now serve as museums. The main park entrance sits behind the Alcala Gate in the Plaza de la Independence.

The park belonged to the Spanish Monarchy until the late 19th century, when it became a public park.

The Parque del Buen Retiro is the most popular park in Madrid. It can get crowded during weekends when many Madrilenian families go for a stroll in the park and street musicians, sidewalk painters, fortune tellers, jugglers and street performers animate the crowd.

Features of the Park

Close to the northern entrance of the park is the Estanque del Retiro (“Retiro Pond”), a large artificial pond. Next to it is the monument to King Alfonso XII, featuring a semicircular colonnade and an equestrian statue of the monarch on the top of a tall central core.

The Rosaleda rose garden, among the many rose bushes of all kinds stands the Fountain of the Falling Angel, erected in 1922, whose main sculpture El Angel Caído (at the top) is a work by Ricardo Bellver (1845–1924) inspired by a passage from John Milton’s Paradise Lost, which represents Lucifer falling from Heaven. It is claimed that this statue is the only known public monument of the devil.

The Artichoke fountain has been a beloved Madrid landmark since architect; Ventura Rodriguez constructed it from granite and white stone in 1781. Originally located in the Glorieta de Atocha, a busy Madrid street, it was relocated to the Retiro Park because all the attention it garnered caused traffic problems. The fountain features an elaborate baroque design complete with tritons, Greek gods and of course, an artichoke.

The few remaining buildings of the Buen Retiro Palace, including Casón del Buen Retiro and the Museo del Ejército, now house museum collections. The Casón has a collection of 19th and 20th century paintings, including art by the Spanish painter Joaquín Sorolla. The Ejército is one of Spain’s foremost Army museums and it houses “La Tizona” the sword of the famous Spanish warrior El Cid. There are displays of armor, a cross carried by Christopher Columbus on his sea voyage to the New World and other artifacts.

Since assuming its role as a public park the late 19th century, the “Parque del Retiro” has been used as a venue for various international exhibitions. Several emblematic buildings have remained as testimony to such events, including the Minig building, popularly known as the Velázquez Palace (1884) by architect Ricardo Velázquez Bosco, and the Palacio de Cristal (“Crystal Palace”), a glass pavilion inspired by The Crystal Palace in London, undoubtedly the gardens’ most extraordinary building.

Built along with its artificial pond in 1887 by architect Ricardo Velázquez Bosco for the Philippine Islands Exhibitions, it was first used to display flower species indigenous to the islands. The landscape-style gardens located in the former “Campo Grande” are also a reminder of the international exhibitions that have taken place here in the past.

The Paseo de la Argentina, also popularly known as Paseo de las Estatuas (“Statue Walk”), is decorated with some of the statues of kings from the Royal Palace, sculpted between 1750 and 1753. There are now art galleries in the Crystal Palace, Palacio de Velázquez, and Casa de Vacas.

In the Retiro Park is also the Forest of the Departed (Bosque de los Ausentes), a memorial monument to commemorate the 191 victims of the 11 March 2004 Madrid attacks.

Activities

From late May through early October, every Sunday at midday, the Banda Sinfónica de Madrid gives free concerts from the bandstand in the park near the Calle d’Alcala. Manuel Lillo Torregrosa composed ‘Kiosko del Retiro’ to this bandstand. The Park also features an annual Book Fair.

Around the lake, Retiro Pond, many puppet shows perform, and all manner of street performers and fortune tellers. Rowboats can be rented to paddle about the Estanque, and horse-drawn carriages are available.

Many local families spend their Sunday afternoons here, renting a horse-drawn carriage or paddling a rowboat in the pond. But it wasn’t always this democratic, as in the 17th century only the royal family was allowed to use it privately, hosting pageants, bullfights, and mock naval battles. Only a century later did it open to the public, but even then visitors had to be formally dressed to enter.

Tourist Accommodation Near the Retiro Park-

• Hotels

• Apartments & Aparthotels

• Hostals (small hotels) & Youth Hostels

 A magnificent park, filled with beautiful sculpture and monuments, galleries, a peaceful lake and host to a variety of events, it is one of Madrid’s premier attractions. The park is entirely surrounded by the present-day city.

The Plaza Mayor was built during the Habsburg period and is a central plaza in the city of Madrid, Spain. It is located only a few Spanish blocks away from another famous plaza, the Puerta Del Sol.

As you walk down Calle Mayor from Puerta Del Sol towards the Royal Palace, you might think Read the rest of this entry »

Plaza de España (or “Spain Square” in English) is one of Madrid’s largest and most popular squares of tourist destination, located in central Madrid, Spain, at the western end of the beautiful Gran Vía. It is one of Madrid’s busiest streets. It features a large fountain and famous monument to honoring the Spanish writer Miguel de Read the rest of this entry »

The Alcázar of Segovia, like many fortifications in Spain, started off as an Arab fort, but little of that structure remains. The Alcázar of Segovia (literally, Segovia Castle) is a stone fortification, located in the old city of Segovia, Spain. Rising out on a rocky crag above the confluence of the rivers Eresma and Read the rest of this entry »

El Palacio de Liria is a large building of XVIII century, residence of the House of Alba in Madrid and principal of his art collection and its archive, both of extraordinary value. Located in the numbers of the current 20-22 Princess Street , in an area formerly known as “Quarter of the Afflicted.” In this mansion that is the largest private house in Madrid (3,500 m2) and their gardens are the only privately owned listed highlighted in green in all levels of the city.

Palacio de Liria is an 18th-century palace of the Duchess of Alba, Read the rest of this entry »

El Palacio de las Dueñas is a city building in Spanish in Sevilla ( Andalusia ) and currently sits on the House of Alba . It was built between the XV and XVI and is a major historic homes in the city of great architectural and artistic for their valuable content. In this place was born the famous poet Antonio Machado .

History

The palace was founded by the family Pineda , who they had to sell in the years 1484 to Doña Catalina de Ribera money for urgent needs: they must pay a ransom by Don Juan de Pineda, taken prisoner by the Moors. The building became the property of the House of Alba after the marriage of the V Marchioness of Villanueva del Rio with the Duke of Alba IV . Here was born Carlos Falco , Marques de Griñón and Marquis Castelmoncayo ( Grandee of Spain ).

Its name comes from the monastery of Santa Maria de las Dueñas, which 1248 became known as Company of Dueñas , whose nuns were in charge of serving Queens and wives of kings San Fernando and Alfonso X el Sabio . This building was in the periphery and was destroyed in 1868 . It has been renovated over the centuries XVIII and XIX .

Building

The palace has many courtyards and buildings and offers several architectural styles: Gothic, Mudejar and Renaissance, containing samples and details with touches of Seville in the bricks, shingles, tiles, whitewashed and ceramics .It is decorated with mosaics, tiles, roof tiles and bricks with a touch of Seville, just as the House of Pilate , a picturesque Andalusian patio. In the arc of the main entrance to the palace you can see the shield of the Duchy of Alba in tile seventeenth century.

It has a typical Andalusian courtyard , like the House Pilate, and dominates the great outdoors, showing the majesty of a whole.

Behind the garden leads to a beautiful courtyard surrounded by arches with columns of white marble, adorned with pillars holding platerescos, plateresco a frieze showing too. On top of this gallery with arches built another Mudejar style.On this gallery with arches built another Mudejar style. The palace has at the bottom to one side of the gallery, a chapel, whose high altar is adorned with ceramic tiles and typically Seville.

Upstairs is a luxurious salon gold octagonal roof and paneled ceiling. The palace has undergone several reforms in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and its main attraction is the art collection it houses. In one of its rooms Antonio Machado was born and lived.

At the entrance to the palace you can see the shield of the Duchy of Alba in tile manufacturing Triana of the seventeenth century or eighteenth century, in the main arch.

The arc west of the courtyard in the lower galleries giving access to the building that was used as a chapel of the palace, also is Plateresque. The altar of the chapel contains several tiles with metallic reflections, typical of the sixteenth century Seville ceramics.

Climbing the top floor of the palace dominates a room whose ceiling is of octagonal shape of alfarje gold, sits on a painted frieze in the Renaissance style.

Art collection

One of its main attractions is the large and decorative art collection which contains, according to an inventory of the Junta de Andalucía amounts to 1,425 pieces, including works of art, furniture and other antiques. The newspaper El Pais (04/10/21) these goods have been subject to the laws of Andalusia, which prohibits the sale and forces holding them together in the palace.

It is important to the whole of Spanish art in the nineteenth and twentieth century’s ( Mariano Benlliure , Federico de Madrazo, Sorolla , Zuloaga , Gonzalo Bilbao , Carmen Laffón ), but has some previous pieces Dueñas: Jacopo Bassano ( The Crockery ), Sofonisba Anguissola , Annibale Carracci , Francesco Furini ( The Creation of Eve ), Luca Giordano , Giovanni Paolo Pannini , José de Ribera ( Christ crowned with thorns ), Francisco Antolínez , Joaquín Inza and a Virgin of Neri di Bicci (who chairs the altar of the chapel) . They are only a portion of the huge gallery belonging to this family, whose main jewels are kept in Madrid in the Palacio de Liria .

Dueñas likewise accumulated abundant antique furniture, ceramics, tapestries and many more decorative objects. Also preserves a drawing to watercolor by Jackie Kennedy during one of his stays in the 1960′s .

Trivia

On the entrance wall, a plaque indicates that one of the premises rented by the administrator of the parents of Duke Antonio Machado , was born and spent his childhood, the poet, and this is reflected in one of his writings:

“My childhood memories are of a courtyard in Seville, and a mature garden clear where the lemon; my youth, twenty years in the land of Castile; my story, sometimes I do not remember. “

In the early twentieth century the family of the engineer and Marquis Guglielmo Marconi , inventor of the telegraph, wireless, enjoyed the beautiful evening that organized the Dukes of Alba in the palace.

Most visitors to Málaga go to the Picasso museum and his house, as the painter is the most famous son of the city, but there’s a new art museum now which focuses on Andalucian art – the Museo Carmen Thyssen.

The Museo Picasso Málaga is a museum in Málaga, Andalusia, Spain, the city where artist Pablo Ruiz Picasso was born. One of the world’s many Picasso museums, Read the rest of this entry »

The Estadio Santiago Bernabéu (Spanish pronunciation: [esˈtaðjo sanˈtjaɣo βernaˈβeu]) is an all-seater football stadium in Madrid, Spain. It was inaugurated on 14 December 1947 and is owned by Real Madrid Club de Fútbol. It has a current capacity of 85,454 spectators.

The legendary stadium of Santiago Bernabéu, home to Real Madrid, is the city’s most popular tourist attraction, ahead of the Prado Museum! The tour includes a visit of the changing rooms, the presidential balcony, the stands, the substitutes’ and coaches’ benches, the press room, Read the rest of this entry »

Santa Cruz, the bustling capital of Tenerife is situated on the coast of the island in the north and has plenty to offer with places to visit and things to do as well as boasting an excellent shopping centre. Santa Cruz is in an ideal location with the sea in front and the Anaga mountains Read the rest of this entry »