You may notice all the cars parked at bottom of picture above. It's because there's nowhere to park in the narrow lanes of the medieval city to the right. The big building at the top of the hill with the 3 spires is the Alcazar of Toledo. (From the Arabic: al qasr meaning castle or palace. cf French chateau means both castle and palace.)
El Greco
He's Greek, as you might guess. His real name is Domenicos Theotocopoulos and he's from Crete. I love his paintings for the intense specific colors he works toward, and the weird internal illumination, as if the fabric itself was emitting the light.
His main workshops was in the city of Toledo, a short train ride from Madrid, and where you can find a lot of his work, especially the famous Burial of Count Orgaz.
If you can't get to Toledo, you will find a number of his great works in 2 rooms of the Prado.
My favorite is this version of the Annunciation, which features an entire band in heaven -- like 5 different instruments and someone reading the sheet music. I imagine the Angel Gabriel telling Mary! "Hail Mary! I've got some amazing news for you!" And Mary saying, "What's that? I can't hear you. Where is that music coming from?"
