Finally, We Finish the Museo de Belles Artes 11-5-25

It was about a week ago that we set out to visit the art museum and were washed out by a little rain. Today we decided at a third attempt to visit and finish seeing what was on exhibit.  There was rain forecast for later in the day so we decided to try an early start while it was still sunny. It proved to be the right approach.  

We read that it was the second best museum of art in all of Spain and I’d have to say that it may be the second best museum for strictly Spanish art in Spain.  And 90% of that is religious and well before the 19th century.  I think it likely has the best collection of pieces by Bartolome Murillo anywhere, but sadly with a few notable exceptions he is not to either of our tastes. To the left the Santa Catalina portrait is a notable exception. Having said that the exceptions of Murillo’s work that were good were extremely good, most of his typical paintings are really too saccharin and he painted scores of them. Which leads me to the conclusion that he actually chose to paint that way.  He painted at a time when pictures created in this manner were desirable, and many still 

revere them, just not me.  The museum is also very strong in works by Francisco de Zurburan, which I confess that up to now has not rated high on my must see lists either. My issue with Zurburan is that most of his paintings that I’ve seen struck me as coming from a time when the only paint colors he had were mud brown, white, and black. But today I was extremely pleased to see any number of paintings by him that used a full palette of colors. The compositions were well executed and masterfully drawn.  So he came up several levels in my estimation, which is good because Deb thinks he’s a wonderful painter, even with the mud works. I was especially taken by his painting of St. Hugo in the Chapterhouse, with subdued color but bright flourishes, and interesting composition.  It sort of looks like it could have been painted in the 1930’s instead of 200 years earlier.

As we finished our visit we discussed where we might go for lunch because the  

sun had given way to building clouds and even a sprinkle of rain.  Fairly quickly we decided that a restaurant close to the apartment would be better if it really began raining. So we caught a bus up close to our apartment and walked over to a restaurant we both really like.  Called Dispirate, it sits almost across from what has become our favorite place. It has also received recognition from the Michelin guide for being worth a visit. We arrived around 2:20 and our server mentioned that the kitchen would be closing at 3:00 so we were under pressure to make our choices for lunch.  I asked for the Menu del Dia and he recited it for us.  The upshot was that we had three offerings from that and one from the regular menu. This was the first time that oysters had been offered so I had three each decorated with a slice of jalapeño, then a bowl of their bean soup consisting of white beans and small shrimps, and finally we shared another sort of paella, this with ham and asparagus. From the regular menu Deb ordered a tapa of bacalao fritters.  The oysters were from France and were wonderfully fresh and had the bite of jalapeño in place of Tabasco. The bean soup was yet another surprise with firm tiny shrimp complementing the

richness of the beans, we decided that it rated second out of the three we’ve had so far and we loved every one of the three.  What to say about the paella, except that we should have ordered the serving for four instead of two, because we were dueling spoons once again.  Deb thinks the fritters here are the best we’ve eaten here or anywhere and I agree.  While we were eating we had a rainstorm perhaps of the intensity of the closing of the Red Sea over the Egyptian army chasing Moses, but luckily it was of a short duration maybe 5 minutes. So we were able to walk back to the apartment without needing umbrellas.

I don’t think I mentioned this before but our street is Calle Lumbreras, which translates to Umbrella Street.