Thanks to the legacies of generations of her Hapsburg and Bourbon monarchs and the more recent donation of Baron Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza and his Spanish wife Carmen, the Spanish capital Madrid is home to an exceptional wealth of paintings. The three great art galleries here – The Prado Museum, the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection and the Art Center of Queen Sofia – are all within walking distance of each other and constitute one of the world’s greatest concentrations of fine art open to the public, providing visitors with an exceptional view of western art from the classical period to the 21st century.

Inaugurated in the 17th century, the Prado has over 5000 paintings. There are works by artists of the Spanish school from as far back as the 16th century Counter-reformation period . El Greco, Velazquez, Goya are all represented here as well as Flemish masters like Van der Weyden, Hemling and Rubens and painters of the Italian Renaissance such as Raphael, Botticelli and Fra Angelico.

Among the masterpieces one should not miss seeing in this museum are Velazquez’ Las Meninas and Surrender at Breda, Goya’s Majas (both the Naked and Clothed versions) and Tres de Maio (Third of May), Memling’s Adoration of the Magi, Rubens’ The Three Graces and Almedina’s beautiful portrait of Santa Catalina.

This museum contains one of the largest collections ever brought together in the private art world - about 800 works collected by the late Baron and his father – which are now on public display. The original collection was added to in 2004 by the late Baron’s wife, Baroness Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza (a former Miss Spain) with more than 250 works from her own collection.

On view here are Zurburan and Titian, Sargent and Gainsborough, Durer and Holbein, Monet and Manet. Not to be missed are Le Nain’s Young Musicians, Buoninsegna’s Christ and the Samaritan Woman, Ghilandaio ‘s Portrait of Giovanna Tornuoboni (said to be the late Baron’s favourite) and Van der Weyden’s picture of the Virgin Mary.

This gallery focuses on contemporary art. Among the highlights displayed in this Museum - the refurbished former Hospital of San Carlos - is Pablo Picasso’s painting Guernica, painted after the 1936 destruction of the Basque town of Guernica. This powerfully symbolic black and white painting graphically depicts when, on April 26th 1937 during the Spanish Civil War, this city in the Basque region of northern Spain was bombed on the instructions of General Franco causing widespread destruction and civilian deaths. This was the first full scale use of Weapons of Mass Destruction on a civilian population, another Massacre of the Innocents. The aerial bombardment of Guernica by the German Air Force, the Luftwaffe was a prelude to the large scale bombing of civilian populations that the British, Americans and Germans resorted to during the second world war.