Madrid1.0

    The last time I was in Madrid Francisco Franco was still alive, my passport got checked by seedy little men in ill-fitting jackets every time I  turned around (or so it seemed) and I fell asleep on a park bench one afternoon after consuming what I thought was a jug of fruit punch but which turned out to be some pretty potent sangria.
    So it might be understandable when I say that going to Madrid for a long weekend was something I looked forward to with a certain degree of wariness.
    I shouldn't have worried. The city is still as beautiful as it ever was - maybe even more so these days - and now that the last Fascist dictator is long dead and safely in the ground I didn't feel as though I was being watched everywhere I went while I was there.
    Madrid is, in large measure, an artificial place. Phillip II (he of Spanish Armada fame) created it practically from scratch because he wanted Spain's capital to be in the center of his empire's home country. In addition, he reasoned, had the capital been located in Barcelona (which was the choice of many), Valencia, Girona or any of a dozen other major cities that could well have led to bad feelings among those populations that were passed over and he definitely didn't want that. That was important politically then because Spain was only newly - and loosely - tied together. Those loose bonds are still apparent today, in fact: Catalunya wants its independence, for example, and has for more than 300 years; the Andalusians have also agitated for their independence as have the Basques.
    There was a small village on the site where the capital now stands but that didn't trouble Phillip, his architects or his engineers. In the way of kings and their retainers, they simply built where they wanted to and the old village was, as a result, virtually consumed by massive public works projects that included the construction of Phillip's palace, assorted churches and cathedrals, bridges, parks, bureaucratic offices and those businesses that did business with the government.
    As a result, Madrid is a city of contrasts. In old Madrid the streets are narrow and they shoot off in all directions. As you leave that part of the city you encounter broad streets and even broader avenues. In old Madrid the buildings are narrow, five or six stories tall. In the rest of Madrid the buildings tend to be massive and there are modern skyscrapers that give the city an impressive skyline.
    The trip to Madrid by train from Reus means taking AVE - the Alta Velocidad Espanola. Roughly translated, that means "pretty freaking fast."
    (Okay, it really means Spanish High Speed but I like my translation better.)
    AVE is also a play on words... "ave" is the Spanish word for "bird" and it suggests that you're going to have not only a fast but also a smooth ride.
    There is a hitch, however: To take AVE to Madrid you have to leave Reus, which has a perfectly good train station, and go to Camp Tarragona. The reason: Reus and Tarragona both wanted the AVE station and so the government, rather than make a difficult decision, put a beautiful, modern, high-speed rail station in the middle of nowhere.
    Trust a politician to take the easy way out, whether he's a member of the U.S. Congress or the Spanish government.
    Anyway, the trip to the station isn't a hardship - only about 30 minutes by car - and the train itself is a beauty: Bullet-shaped with comfortable seats that offer passengers plenty of leg room. (After spending too many hours crammed into Hobbit-sized airplane seats going to New Zealand in June and then flying back to Spain in late August I REALLY appreciated that leg room...)
    The trip to Madrid takes 2-1/2 hours at speeds of about 200 mph on average. At the end of the line is the thoroughly modernized Madrid-Atocha station, which is itself a work of art complete with its own forest, resident bird population and a giant pond filled with koi and turtles.
    Pretty darn impressive.
    (Stay tuned for Madrid 2.0.)

The AVE pulling into the station at Camp Tarragona on Friday afternoon...

... and getting ready to leave Madrid-Atocha station Sunday night.

In Madrid government officials seem to have fallen in love with the concept of  bigness, an example of which is this sculpture of a giant head just outside the train station...

... and this fortress-like building with gigantic statues on the roof. It's the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture but it could just as easily be the Ministry of Defense.