The Commonwealth Club Of California Taste of Spain Tour - Madrid, Oct. 9 & 10, 2013

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View of la Calle de Alcalá, the longest street in Madrid, from the Palacio de Cibeles restaurant, where participants on the Commonwealth Club Taste of Spain Tour 2013 had dinner. 
 Photo by Gerry Dawes©2013 / gerrydawes@aol.com. Canon 5D Mark III / Canon 24-105mm f/4L IS USM. 
 

Slide show of The Commonwealth Club Taste of Spain Tour 
First Days in Madrid, Oct. 9 & 10, 2013
 (Click on image to enlarge and see slide show with captions.)

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About Gerry Dawes

Writing, Photography, & Specialized Tours of Spain & Tour Advice

For custom-designed tours of Spain, organized and lead by Gerry Dawes, and custom-planned Spanish wine, food, cultural and photographic itineraries, send inquiries to gerrydawes@aol.com.  

I have planned and led tours for such culinary stars as Chefs Thomas Keller, Mark Miller, Mark Kiffin, Michael Lomonaco and Michael Chiarello and such personalities as baseball great Keith Hernandez and led on shorter excursions and have given detailed travel advice to many other well-known chefs and personalities such as Drew Nieporent, Norman Van Aken, Karen Page and Andrew Dornenberg, Christopher Gross, Rick Moonen, James Campbell Caruso and many others.

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“The American writer and town crier for all good Spanish things Gerry Dawes . . . the American connoisseur of all things Spanish . . .” Michael Paterniti, The Telling Room: A Tale of Love, Betrayal, Revenge and The World’s Greatest Piece of Cheese

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"Gerry Dawes, I can't thank you enough for opening up Spain to me." -- Michael Chiarello on Twitter. 

"Chiarello embarked on a crash course by traveling to Spain for 10 days in 2011 with Food Arts

contributing authority Gerry Dawes, a noted expert on Spanish food and wine.  Coqueta's (Chiarello's new restaurant at Pier Five, San Francisco) chef de cuisine, Ryan McIlwraith, later joined Dawes for his own two week excursion, as well. Sampling both old and new, they visited wineries and marketplaces, as well as some of Spain's most revered dining establishments, including the Michelin three-star Arzak, Etxebarri, the temple to live fire-grilling; Tickets, the playful Barcelona tapas bar run by Ferran Adrià and his brother, Albert; and ABaC, where Catalan cooking goes avant-garde." - - Carolyn Jung, Food Arts, May 2013.

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"In his nearly thirty years of wandering the back roads of Spain," Gerry Dawes has built up a much stronger bank of experiences than I had to rely on when I started writing Iberia...His adventures far exceeded mine in both width and depth..." -- James A. Michener, author of Iberia: Spanish Travels and Reflections

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Gerry Dawes was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía (National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural tours to Spain. He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine, won The Cava Institute's First Prize for Journalism for his article on cava in 2004, was awarded the CineGourLand “Cinéfilos y Gourmets” (Cinephiles & Gourmets) prize in 2009 in Getxo (Vizcaya) and received the 2009 Association of Food Journalists Second Prize for Best Food Feature in a Magazine for his Food Arts article, a retrospective piece about Catalan star chef, Ferran Adrià. 

In December, 2009, Dawes was awarded the Food Arts Silver Spoon Award in a profile written by José Andrés. ". . .That we were the first to introduce American readers to Ferran Adrià in 1997 and have ever since continued to bring you a blow-by-blow narrative of Spain's riveting ferment is chiefly due to our Spanish correspondent, Gerry "Mr. Spain" Dawes, the messianic wine and food journalist raised in Southern Illinois and possessor of a self-accumulated doctorate in the Spanish table. Gerry once again brings us up to the very minute. . ." - - Michael & Ariane Batterberry, Editor-in-Chief/Publisher and Founding Editor/Publisher, Food Arts, October 2009. 

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Trailer-pilot for a reality television series 

on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.

Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Customized Culinary, Wine & Cultural Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain  

Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com; Alternate e-mail (use only if your e-mail to AOL is rejected): gerrydawes@gmail.com

A NEW CENTURY IN THE PRADO MUSEUM

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        Roger Van der Wyden's Descent From The Cross, Prado Museum

 A NEW CENTURY IN THE PRADO MUSEUM

From Goya to Sorolla, the Display of the Collection Expands with 12 New Galleries & 176 Works

Madrid, SPAIN, November 3, 2009 – One of Madrid’s leading art institutions has opened 12 new galleries and is exhibiting 176 works – several recently acquired and some never exhibited before – all from the 19^th century.  A New Century in the Museo del Prado, represents a key step forward in the Prado’s collections plans known as The Collection: The Second Extension.  On October 6, more than 170 new works were added to the permanent collection and now, for the first time, visitors to the Prado will see an uninterrupted overview of the development of Spanish art from the 12^th century Romanesque painting of San Baudelio de Berlanga up through the early 20^th century work of Sorolla which runs parallel to the century’s earliest avant-garde movements.

       Among the 176 paintings, watercolors and sculptures finally on view are several acquired in the last several years: José de Madrazo’s The French Cuirassier acquired this summer; Penitents in the Lower Church at Assisi by José Jiménez Aranda (acquired in 2001), and Large Landscape (Aragón) by Francisco Domingo Marqués (acquired in 2000).  Maria Figueroa as a young girl dressed as a Menina by Joaquín Sorolla, also purchased in 2000, joins the artist’s And they still say fish is expensive!, a masterpiece of social realism and Boys on the Beach, one of the Prado’s most celebrated modern paintings.

       Today the Museum has the world’s foremost collection of Spanish paintings – some 4,600 – dating from the Middle Ages to the 19^th century including outstanding masterpieces by Berruguete, El Greco, Goya, Murillo, Ribera, Sorolla, Velázquez and Zurbarán.  In 2007, an extensive expansion designed by Rafael Moneo increased the museum’s space by 50 percent. 

       Organized chronologically, the new galleries begin with Goya (the Prado has 140 of his works), Neoclassicism and the Origins of the Museum, followed by Romanticism, Federico de Madrazo, Rosales, Fortuny and Rico and Raimundo de Madrazo There are two rooms with historical paintings and one gallery with landscapes. The final galleries highlight Naturalism, Sorolla and landscapes by Aureliano Beruete, donated by the artist’s family.

The Prado Museum is located on Paseo del Prado and is open daily, except 

Mondays, from 9 AM to 8 PM.  Admission is about $11.80 or 8 euros.  Visitors under 

18 are admitted free of charge.  Students under 25 from non-EU countries pay about 

$6 or 4 euros. Admission to the Permanent Collection is free Tuesdays to Saturdays from 6 PM to 8 PM and on Sundays from 5 PM to 8 PM.  Go to www.museodelprado.es/en/

For information about Spain, contact the Tourist Office of Spain in New York (212-265-8822); Miami (305-358-1992); Chicago (312-642-1992) or Los Angeles (323-658-7195) or go to www.spain.info.

Contact:

Pilar Vico                                                                                           Meredith Pillon

Tourist Office of Spain                                               MPMC

212-265-8822                                                              212-289-1627

pilar.vico@tourspain.es                                              meredithpillon@mpmcus.com

About Gerry Dawes

Gerry Dawes was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía (National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural tours to Spain. He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine, won The Cava Institute's First Prize for Journalism for his article on cava in 2004, was awarded the CineGourLand prize in 2009 and received the Association of Food Journalists 2009 Second Prize for Best Food Feature in a Magazine for his Food Arts article, a retrospective piece about Catalan star chef, Ferran Adrià.

Mr. Dawes is currently working on a reality television

series on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.

Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Culinary Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain

Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com; Alternate e-mail (use only if your e-mail to AOL is rejected): gerrydawes@gmail.com