Museo Nacional del Prado

The Museo Nacional del Prado is Spain's foremost art museum and one of the most significant collections of European painting in the world. Situated on the Paseo del Prado in central Madrid, the building was designed by Juan de Villanueva in the neoclassical style and originally conceived as a natural science museum before opening as a public art gallery in 1819. Its permanent collection spans the twelfth to the early twentieth century, with particular depth in Spanish, Flemish, and Italian schools.

The Prado holds works by Velázquez, including Las Meninas, alongside Goya's Black Paintings, Bosch's The Garden of Earthly Delights, and masterpieces by Titian, Rubens, and El Greco. The museum's galleries trace the patronage of the Spanish Crown across centuries, giving the collection an unusual coherence and historical weight. Tickets to the Prado grant access to these permanent galleries, placing visitors in direct contact with some of the most studied and reproduced paintings in Western art.