España, Día 14: San Francisco el Grande, Isidro, Atleti

In all my time in Madrid, I never went to a mass, but I checked that off my bucket list when Nina and Mari joined me for a Sunday morning visit to la basilica de San Francisco el Grande, built in 1784.

The church's dome--the largest in Spain, and one of the largest in Europe--appears in the background of many of Goya's paintings as an identifier of Madrid.

It was hard for me to follow what the priest was saying because of the echo in the building, and there was less music and pageantry than I was hoping for, but the building was beautiful, and I'm glad we went.

Above and below: Nina and San Francisco el Grande, seen from the street.

In the photo above, Nina and Mari are standing in front of the Church of San Andres (Andrew) the Apostle, which was built in the 1660s on the site where a 12th century church was previously built, which was itself built on the same site where the city's main mosque once stood during Madrid's Islamic age. The interior of San Andres was largely destroyed by Republicans in Madrid in July 1938 in the days following Franco's attack on the country.

Construction of the Museo de San Isidro, next to the San Andres church, was built a dozen years after I left Madrid. I didn't know about it, but wandering in, I discovered that it was free, not busy, and open on Sunday, so we explored. It was time well-spent.

The museum focuses on most of the history of Madrid leading up to the time covered by the Museum of the History of Madrid (1561 to the present), which I had visited earlier in the trip.

My visit taught me that:

• Humans have lived in the valleys of Madrid for almost 400,000 years (that is not a typo!). The first to arrive were of the species heidelbergensis.
• Until 120,000 years ago, the humans in this area lived alongside prairie rhinos, elephants, hippos and giant bulls (of course).
• 80,000 years ago, climate change brought giant deer, mammoths, wooly rhinos, and bison (!) to the Iberian peninsula.
• Neanderthals lived here until 27,000 years ago.
• Some of the few examples of Paleolithic art (drawings of animals and anthropomorphic creatures) on the plateau can be found on the walls of the Reguerillo cave in the village of Patones, near Madrid (the cave has been closed to the public since 2006).
• Systematic agriculture came to this region about 10,000 years ago after developing first in the near East 2,000 years previously.
• When the Romans arrived in 139 BCE, the area was populated by a tribe of Celtic origin known as the Carpetani, who lived in long houses that resemble, to my eyes, some that we saw in the Hebrides islands off the northwest coast of Scotland.
• One of Madrid's suburbs, Alcalá de Henares, had a population of 50,000 during the Roman era. Most villages in the area farmed cereal grains, produced oils and wines, and herded sheep. The homes of the most prominent citizens featured mosaic decorations.
• In the 500s, the region was governed by the Germanic Visigothic kings of Toledo.

I especially enjoyed encountering the scale-model of the city (above) that shows a series of concentric city walls that enclosed Madrid during its different eras (marked in different colors).

• The innermost circle represents the earliest walled enclosure that was built in the 800s/900s, when "Mayrit" was founded by the Cordoban emir Muhammad the first. The frontier fortress was designed to stop Christian attacks from the north. In the city's Islamic period, Mayrit featured a mosque, markets, and bathhouses. The maze-like routes of some the oldest, narrowest streets in the city, near the church of San Andres, were once part of the Islamic medina.
• The city was incorporated into Christian Castille in 1085 as a result of a pact between Alfonso VI and al-Qadir, who was then in power in Toledo. Muslims and Jews were permitted to stay in the city, but they lived in designate neighborhoods. The Muslim quarter, la Moreria ,was near the San Andres church, and the Muslims who lived there worked as potters, bricklayers, and blacksmiths.
• The city was attacked and besieged on multiple occasions over the next 100 years.
• A subsequent circle of city walls was built during the 1100s. The city's patron saint, Isidro, lived in Madrid at the time.
• After 1212, the border battles of the Christian re-conquest of Iberia moved further south.
• In the 1300s, Castille's Trastamaran kings began making regular visits to the city. At this time, relations between the city's Christians, Jews and Muslims deteriorated.
• They don't know whether Madrid's original alcázar (castle), built in the 1300s (site of the current Royal Palace) was itself built on the site of a previous Islamic fortress (but I'm guessing "yes").
• The original "Almudena" church was built in the historic Muslim region of the city (al-medina/Almudena) on the site previously occupied by the city's main mosque (they do not know whether the mosque was "purified" and repurposed or whether it was razed to the ground).
• The last city walls were built in 1656. I believe the reflection of my camera's flash illuminates the spot where la calle de Toledo reaches la Puerta de Toledo, which is near la casa de los abuelos.

Above: the legendary 12th century well where San Isidro, the patron saint of Madrid, performed a miracle. When his son fell in the well, Isidro prayed, and the water in the well rose to the surface, delivering the boy to safety.

When we visited the museum, an extensive nativity scene (Belén, or Bethlehem) was displayed in the museum's courtyard.

The Arco de Cuchilleros, above, provides entry into la Plaza Mayor. It was built after a fire destroyed much of the Plaza in 1790. "Cuchilleros" are cutlery makers.

11

For some of us, candy shops are magnets.

I had never been to a professional soccer match in Spain (a secular Spanish mass with more enthusiasm, music, and pageantry?), but I can now cross that off my list, as well. This had been on our wish list for a long time. We weren't sure we were going to be able to make it happen, but Jaime hooked us up with four passes to a club suite for Atletico Madrid's home field La Liga match against Rayo Vallecano (another Madrid club). Jaime got the tickets from a former patient of his who runs a real estate business.

After lunch, we took a subway to the field--the Wanda Metropolitano Stadium, built in 2017--and a club suite hostess hung up our coats and invited us to enjoy some delicious free food while we were waiting for the game to start (the food enjoyment continued during the game and at halftime as well)

We could move back and forth from the enclosed suite, where the food was, to the outside seating area, where the roar of the crowd was.

16

19

Nina was the only one of us wearing Atleti attire. I planned to get a shirt for Emilio, but when it comes to t-shirts, he's picky about colors and fabric.

  

21

22

23

24

Atleti won the match 2-0. Atleti forward Luis Suarez was the best-known player on the pitch, but 26-year-old Argentine forward Ángel Correa scored both of Atleti's goals. He is 5'7" tall--about Emi's height.

In the suite next to us, we saw central defender Stefan Savic, who was out with an injury, and former Atleti midfieder Filipe Luis, who made 240 appearances for Atleti and 44 for Brazil's national team (Emilio took a picture with him).

After the game, we stopped briefly at la casa de los abuelos and then headed to a Hieronymous Bosch-inspired art exhibit in an exhibition space constructed on the grounds of what was once Madrid's slaughterhouse. It was really difficult to get tickets under Covid conditions. Each person could only reserve two tickets online, but through a well-coordinated group effort we managed to get tickets for the five us, la abuela, Gerardo, Gimena, Rita and Uxue. We arrived just before the last people were allowed to enter.

Back at the house, we watched the Barca game on TV (we beat Real Mallorca 1-0), played Carioca (some of us), and then Emilio and I watched the Cowboys game on my phone (a loss--yech).