Madrid Attractions

Venue: The Prado (Museo del Prado)    When: Daily; not Mon

Madrid's Museo del Prado houses a dazzling permanent collection of some 7000 paintings and is especially noted for its Flemish, Dutch, Spanish and Italian works. The gallery ranks as one of the top five in the world and is an absolute must-see.

The most significant and interesting of the Flemish pieces are those by Hieronymous Bosch, a maverick artist of the 15th century who painted eerie, apocalyptic visions of biblical scenes. The Prado owns several Bosch triptychs.

The Spanish collection is probably the most stunning of all, with an unrivalled collection of works by Velázquez, Goya and El Greco. Velázquez' Las Meninas is a bizarre, mysterious group portrait of the the Infanta Doña Maria (daughter of the King and Queen of Spain) and her ladies-in-waiting (meninas - dwarves), with the artist himself outlined in a distant doorway. There are more than 140 paintings by Goya - the Prado basically has a monopoly on the artist's greatest works. They include the once controversial and highly erotic Majas (dressed and undressed) and some of his weird and disturbing Black Paintings, peopled by witches, demons and paranoid nightmares.

The Italian paintings include Raphaels, Titians and Caravaggios. The two most interesting works are Fra Angelico's Annunciation (c 1445) and some stunning panels by Botticelli. Among the Flemish paintings are works by Rubens, van Dyck and Breughel. The French collection includes paintings by Poussin and Claudio and the German collection works by Alberto Durero, Lucas Cranach, Baldung Grien and Mengs.

There is also a substantial collection of sculpture (from Ancient Greece and Rome to 16th-century works), decorative arts, drawings and prints.