When one of your best friends is a noted fine antique art restorer and he invites you to walk around the Museo Arqueológico Nacional, something you had not done since you were a schoolboy, you drop everything and go!

First, what a wonderful job they have done renovating it! The museum shares building with the National Library -One side Library, one side Museum. In it you will find everything from prehistoric bones to early 19^th C artifacts. Of course, the main exhibits are from Spain’s first inhabitants, the íberos, with their rich sculptures, like the Dama de Elche -the museum’s undisputed jewel, and their falcata swords feared by the Romans… (Jaime restored a bunch of these curved swords and told me everything about them).

The room of Roman mosaics is mind blowing, the Greek room, the Romanesque room also, and on and on. The whole museum is jaw dropping! And if that was not enough, under the garden, they have recreated the Altamira caves with their prehistoric paintings, it is literally a cave with the painting on the walls and ceilings.

Jaime even introduced me to some of his colleagues and showed me the labs and workshops, even the library where he works when he collaborates with them.

So, if you are in Madrid, do not miss the Museo Arqueológico Nacional, also, it is on Calle Serrano, a main shopping street so you can kill two birds with one stone!!

You are welcome!