The Museo Del Prado is one of the most famous museums in the world and is often considered one of the greatest museums in the world. It was founded in 1819 and is thought to have the world’s finest collections of European art. This Museum is one of the most visited sites in the world.
The Prado current collection is currently comprised of over 20,000 drawings, paintings, prints and sculptures. Most notably the Prado has an extensive collection of Francisco Goya’s work, it also features work from Hieronymus Bosch, El Greco, Peter Paul Rubens, Titian, and Diego Velázquez.
History
The Prado was designed in 1785 by architect Juan de Villanueva changing hands a couple of times and was finally open to the public until 1819 under the official name Museo Nacional del Prado. Originally the museum was devoted to Spanish art but has since grown to feature art from all over the world.
Whether to not you are an art buff The Prado is worth a walkthrough. The Museum is full of rooms of all sorts of paintings and artworks. There is something for everyone. There is plenty of ways to see the Museum.
Ticket Prices
General Ticket: €15,00
General Ticket + ‘Guide book of the Prado’: €24,00
Reduced Ticket (seniors 65+): €7,50
Children and students to age 25 can get free admission.
Hours
Monday to Saturday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Sundays and holidays from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Free access last 2 hours of the day.
For more information on tickets and pricing check out the site.
Tours
We did not choose to do a tour when we visited the Prado but they have several to choose from if this is your way to see museums including 1, 2, and 3-hour tours.
Audio Guides
Audio Guides are available to rent. The guide of the whole collection is available in Spanish, Catalan, Basque, Galician, German, Korean, Chinese, English, Italian, French, Japanese, Portuguese and Russian for 4 euro. The temporary exhibits are available in Spanish and English for 3,50 euros. You can get both at a discount for 6 euro.
Lockers
There are lockers available to place your items in while you look around. Since they do not allow food, drinks, larger backpacks and things like that inside the museum, it’s very convenient.
Photography
Photography is not allowed in the museum. I will admit I didn’t catch this, I thought it was just professional level cameras that are not allowed in. Oops. Don’t try it, they will get very mad at you.
The Guide Book
You will notice one of the ticket prices above has the guide book included in the price. We opted to buy one ticket with this bundle because I usually get a guide book from these big museums. I expected 10 to 20 pages with an overview of the museum like the one I got from the Lurve. This is not the case. This a massive guide book of over 300 pages and features a majority of the art in the museum and some of the information on each piece. If you just wanted a little souvenir book this is not it. You will love this guide book if you are very interested in art and art history.
Location
MUSEO NACIONAL DEL PRADO
Calle Ruiz de Alarcón 23
28014 Madrid
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