While the Museo del Prado alone might justify a visit to Madrid – and this tour has two sessions there – the city has other excellent collections which reinforce its reputation as one of the great art centres of Europe.

This city of Velázquez and Goya has been enormously enhanced over the years by the installation of the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection and the Reina Sofía Museum. Both these and the Prado have recently undergone major extension work under architects Jean Nouvel (Reina Sofía), Manuel Baquero and Francesc Plá (Thyssen) and Rafael Moneo (Prado). New exhibiting spaces, restaurants and lecture theatres lend even greater lustre to these world-class galleries. Our stints at the ‘big three’ are interspersed with less-visited collections, many of them recently restored.

The great Spanish painters – including El Greco, Murillo, Velázquez, Goya, and Picasso – are of course magnificently represented on the tour, but the collecting mania of the Habsburgs and Bourbons and their subjects has resulted in a wide range of artistic riches which will surprise and delight. There is a large number of outstanding paintings by Titian and Rubens, for example, and the Prado has by far the largest holding of the bizarre creations of Hieronymus Bosch.

Our March tour coincides with a major exhibition at the Prado entitled Treasures from the Hermitage, offering a unique opportunity to see works on loan from St Petersburg with exhibits from its diverse collection. Works by Caravaggio, Ribera, Velázquez, Monet, Matisse and Picasso will sit alongside drawings by Dürer and Rubens, Bernini sculpture and pieces of Siberian jewellery from Peter the Great’s collection.

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