My wife and I have been taking a decidedly “less is more” approach to museum visits on our last few trips.  When our plans for Madrid started to come together, it was pretty clear there were two can’t miss museums for us – the Museo del Prado (no photography allowed inside, so I won’t write here about it other than to say it was a remarkable experience to roam through it on a rainy fall day) and the museum of 20th century art, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía.

I generally favour more modern art, so the Reina Sofía was actually higher on my list than the Prado.  There were a number of pieces I was very excited to see inside the museum, but on entry, I was surprised (really, it was only a lack of advance reading/research) to find some great modern pieces in an outside courtyard by some of my favourite artists.  First, “Carmen” by Alexander Calder caught my attention and brought me back to a childhood experience of seeing a Calder piece in Montreal as well as seeing some of his other installations in Seattle, Chicago, Philadelphia, and outside Copenhagen.

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