NEWS FROM D&P, YOUR DMC FOR SPAIN AND MORE !!!
WINTER 2011
Travelling experiences with charm !!!
El Expreso de La Robla is an opportunity to travel on a vintage, but with all the amenities of any hotel, at an affordable price.
The train, which combines a vintage design with modern amenities, has three lounges and four couchette wagons, where each compartment has its own fully-equipped bathroom, air-conditioning and all the latest technical features.
It is designed for the passenger to enjoy the pleasure of travelling and watch the beautiful countryside along the route through the train's generous windows. At night, the train stops at one of the stations so that the passengers can spend a pleasant evening on or off the train and can get a good night's sleep.
A coach is always provided to take the passengers to those spots not immediately on the train's route. A guide also accompanies the passengers and points out the hidden gems along the route.
Discover the north from Gijón to Santiago and Ribadeo, as you spend 4 or 2 days on board a luxury train but at a price that is within most budgets. This unique experience offers all the nostalgia of the great Train journeys, but with every modern amenity, while emulating all the traditions and glamour of El Transcantábrico route. A journey that you will never forget.
El Expreso de La Robla offers three different routes: one in spring and autumn through Castilla y León and another in summer through Galicia and a new itinerary through Asturias and Galicia.For La Robla and Santiago itineraries each journey lasts four days and three nights, and starts on Thursdays when the train either leaves the Bilbao on the Castilla y León route and ends back in Bilbao on the Sunday, or it sets off from the Gijón station on the Galicia route, also on a Thursday and arrives back there on the Sunday.
The basic package includes 3 nights/4 days, 3 breakfasts, 3 lunches, 3 dinners and all excursions with entrances, private coach and guide.
But of course, we can meet your special requirements both in terms of the route and places to visit, the length or the contents of the trip. So that we can design a tailor-made trip just for you.
ART: Madrid and more
Still on!!!
The Hermitage in the Prado
A unique opportunity to discover the Russian museum.
The Prado National Museum is organizing an exhibition that will allow the Spanish public to explore the varied collection of the St. Petersburg State Hermitage Museum. 'Treasures from the Hermitage' is part of an exchange program between the Russian and Spanish museums that falls within the Spain-Russia Dual Year 2011.
The exhibition consists of 170 works from the Hermitage Museum, offering a broad showcase of the artistic and chronological diversity of its collection. It includes archeological pieces, decorative art objects, paintings, sculptures and drawings from collections dating from the 5th century BC to the 20th century.
The St. Petersburg Hermitage Museum is one of the largest museums in the world, not only in terms of its collection, but also because of the spectacular group of palatial buildings where it is located. The exhibition gives the Spanish public a glimpse of the museum's biggest treasures, its splendor and the works of art and archeological objects housed between its walls.
Titian's 'St. Sebastian,' Caravaggio's 'Lute Player,' Ribera's 'St. Sebastian' and Velazquez's 'Peasants at Table' are all featured in the exhibition, along with Rembrandt's 'Portrait of a Scholar' and 'Haman Recognizes his Fate' from the museum's substantial collection of works by the Dutch painter.
Of the sculptures on display, works by masters such as Bernini and Antonio Canova stand out, while drawing is represented by Durer, Ingres and Rubens, among others. Impressionism and post-impressionism are present in pieces by painters such as Gauguin, Monet and Cézanne. There are also works by Picasso and Kandinsky, in addition to significant archeological objects and pieces of decorative art.
When: from 8/11/2011 to 25/03 2012
Where: Prado Museum
New exhibitions:
Da Vinci: The Genius
A show dedicated to Leonardo da Vinci
The world of the Italian Renaissance man has been captured a comprehensive exhibition including a 3D film about his life. For the occasion, 19 rooms of Arte Canal have been filled with reconstructions of the places where he worked, pieces by his students and replicas of many of his machines. 
The exhibition is divided into three parts: the first focuses on more personal side of Da Vinci, the second takes a look at the painting of his Italian and Spanish students and the third shows the machines that he created.
A number of Spanish and foreign museums have helped recreate spaces and objects to give the public a better understanding of Leonardo da Vinci; this is the case of the reconstruction of his library and study, which includes over 40 original codices and manuscripts and five original drawings by the artist.
The exhibition also finds room for the creations of Da Vinci's students. Some of the pieces in this section, such as Giampietrino's 'The Last Supper', are being shown for the first time in Spain. Seventy of his machines, many of them interactive, have also been reconstructed to give a full view of all the fields explored by this multifaceted artist.
`Da Vinci: The Genius' includes a 3D film about his life and work. Coinciding with this exhibition, several workshops and a tasting session of five gourmet dishes created by the chef Sergi Arola have also been lined up.
When: from 2nd December 2011 until 2nd May 2012
Where: Centro de Arte Canal
Berthe Morisot: La pintora impresionista
The first solo show dedicated to the French artist in Spain.
A modern woman ahead of her time, Berthe Morisot was just another member of Impressionist movement who played a central role in the most important chapters of late 19th-century intellectual life.
This exhibition at the Thyssen is important not only because it is the first solo show dedicated to Morisot in Spain, allowing us to see her paintings, but also because it gives us a chance to discover Morisot as a person with an exceptional biography.
Morisot's work was always shown in the Paris Salon with the group of Impressionists until 1874, when she chose to submit her work to the First Impressionist Exhibition. She was married to Eugène Manet, the brother of Édouard Manet, who she convinced to paint en plein air.
According to Paul Valery, the special thing about Berthe Morisot was the way 'she lived her painting and painted her life.' Her circle of friends included intellectuals and artists such as Renoir, Monet, Pissarro, Degas and Mallarmé.
Most of her paintings were of upper-class French women from the late 19th-century. In addition to works from the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, the exhibition also includes around 30 paintings from the Marmottan Monet Museum in Paris.
When: from 15/11/2011 to 12th February 2012
Where: Thyssen Bornemisza Museum
Muntadas. Entre/Between
The entire career of a great Catalan artist, on display.
The Reina Sofia Museum has put together an exhibition that spans the 40-year career of the artist Antoni Muntadas, including a new, final project shown for the first time to the public. 
The exhibition features some of his most important works, including 'The Board Room' (1987), which explores the relationship between the economy, the media and religion through the use of metaphor; and 'Between the Frames' (1983-1993), which reveals the complexities of the art world. Pieces such as 'The File Room' (1994), an online archive about censorship, will also be present, as well as 'On Translation', a series of works exploring issues of transcription, interpretation, and translation.
Born in Barcelona in 1942, Antoni Muntadas has been living in New York since 1971. He is regarded as a key figure in conceptual and media art. Over the course of his career, he has dabbled in photography, video, performance and installations. His work focuses on the relationship between public and private, the different trends in official architecture, and 'media flow', a stream of information engineered by advertisers to be consumed whole.
When: from 22/11/2011 to26/03/2012
Where: Reina Sofia Museum
La Orden del Toisón de Oro
The history of
this order of chivalry through art.
this order of chivalry through art.The exhibition shows the origins and evolution of the Order of the Golden Fleece, with a special focus on the role of the Spanish monarchy through around 50 works, including oil paintings, sculptures and other decorative arts from museums all over the world.
Rubens, Carreño de Miranda, Velázquez, Goya, Leone Leoni, Mengs, Antonio Moro, Sánchez Coello and Pantoja de la Cruz are some of the artists represented in this show dedicated to the Order of the Golden Fleece.
The chosen works, including portraits and scenes of palace life, were mainly produced between the 15th to 19th centuries. In many of them, the subjects clearly belong to this elite order of chivalry, closely tied to the Spanish Crown throughout its history.
The pieces on display come from institutions in Spain, Germany, Austria, the United Kingdom and Belgium, such as the Fine Arts Museum of Brussels, the Kunsthistorisches (Museum of Art History) of Vienna, the Prado of Madrid and the National Gallery of London.
When: from 30 November 2011 to 26 February 2012
Where: Fundación Carlos de Amberes
Joan Miró: the Ladder of Escape
The exhibition, which is co-organised by Tate Modern and the Fundació Joan Miró, brings together more than 150 paintings, works on paper and sculptures by one of the key artists of the 20th century.
The show comprises works from collections from around the world in order to provide a complete overview of Miró’s impressive output as well as to analyse the backdrop against which Miró produced his work. At the same time, it underlines his political engagement and the influence of his Catalan roots, the Spanish Civil War and beginning and end of the Franco regime.
The exhibition looks at the artist's varying degrees of engagement during his lifetime, with its different emotional and artistic shifts. The opening section shows a Miró concerned with aspects of Catalan identity, with works depicting landscapes and traditions, which include images from rural life, ranging from The Farm (1921-1922), once owned by his friend Ernest Hemingway, to the masterly sequence Head of a Catalan Peasant (1924-1925). The exhibition also highlights the tensions Miró experienced with the outbreak of the Civil War, which led him to protest vehemently in paintings such as Aidez l’Espagne and The Reaper (Catalan Peasant in Revolt), dating from 1937, as well as more private and troubling responses with the famous Constellation paintings (1940 and 1941), when the world was at war. The retrospective, which comes to Barcelona from London, showcases key works including the superb triptych The Hope of a Condemned Man (1973). The exhibition also reveals how Miró captured the atmosphere of protest in the late 1960s by blackening or setting fire to his works, such as May 1968 (1968-1973) and Burnt Canvas II (1973). The radical and pioneering nature of his ladder of escape is also shown in euphoric explosions of paint, such as the triptych Fireworks (1974). The Fundació Joan Miró is providing a unique opportunity to discover the artist’s works and to come into contact with his most personal and engaged universe. With countless pieces that are symbols of their age, drawn from several collections, Miró is revealed to us as a constantly evolving genius
When: until 16 March 2012
Where: Fundación Joan Miró-Barcelona
SHOWS: music, theatre, dance
Chicago. The musical
Crimes of passion and a thirst for fame with true Broadway flavor.
With thirteen years on Broadway and huge success on London's West End, six Tony Awards and hard-earned fame, this musical based on a real story of violence and ambition now brings a touch of glamour to Madrid's Nuevo Teatro Alcalá.
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In the wild 20s in the United States, the crimes of Velma Gartner (a cabaret singer accused of killing her husband) and Beaulah Annan (a married woman who killed her lover) triggered a real media circus in the Chicago press, influencing the development of their respective trials. Based on newspaper accounts of these events, the master of musical theater Bob Fosse ('Cabaret', 'All That Jazz') wrote a frenetic, libertine, sexy work full of exciting numbers.
With performances by Renée Zellweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Richard Gere in the movie adaptation of this musical (winner of the Oscar for Best Film in 2002) still fresh in the collective memory, the version follows the original production to the letter. In it, the two female criminals sweet-talk the press and a corrupt, well-known lawyer in an attempt to come out of their upcoming trials favorably.
When: from 17th November until 5th February 2012
Where: Nuevo Teatro Alcalá
OTHER IMPORTANT DATES
ARCOmadrid_2012
The Netherlands is the featured country at the 31st International Contemporary Art Fair of Madrid.
ARCOmadrid returns with its usual momentum and audacity when it comes to following the latest trends in contemporary art. Carlos Urroz returns for a second year as director of this event, with the Netherlands as the guest of honor. 
The general program includes 12 Dutch galleries selected by Xander Karsken, in charge of the contemporary art program at the Hallen Haarlem Museum, offering a complete vision of the art scene in the Netherlands. The Mondriaan Foundation has also designed and set up a Dutch Pavilion with round tables, conferences and audiovisual presentations about art from this European country.
Many of the changes made by Urroz last year will remain in 2012. Once again, Solo Projects will be dedicated to the most recent art from Latin America. This time, participation in this section of the fair has been opened up to any gallery that represents a notable Latin American artist. A committee will select the most interesting proposals.
Another highlight from last year's fair, Opening: New European Galleries, will once again focus on up-and-coming galleries, founded less than seven years ago. And Professional Encounters will give collectors, gallerists, critics and professionals another chance to network.
ARCOmadrid gauges the latest trends on the international art scene. Each year, the fair draws over 150,000 visitors from around the world, inevitably making Madrid the center of attention for artists, gallerists, curators and collectors.
When: from 15 to 19 January 2012
Where: IFEMA – Feria de Madrid
Madrid Fusión and Gastrofestival 2012
An initiative of the Madrid City Government and Madrid Fusión, the Gastrofestival is gastronomy and culture.
Taking advantage of the Madrid Fusion celebration in the city, the Gastrofestival is aimed at making Madrid citizens and visitors participants in a wide range of cuisine-related activities.
The III Edition Gastrofestival 2012 program reaches beyond the borders of traditional restaurant cuisine and takes place in a variety of spaces. Gastronomy is conceived as culture, and one can enjoy major museums and art galleries, kitchenware, gourmet and luxury shops and the National Film Archive with a cuisine-related film series in the theater.
This year, from January 23 to February 5, 2012,
Valencia: Become Indiana Jones for a day
The Príncipe Felipe Science Museum is hosting the exhibition ‘Indiana Jones and the Adventure of Archaeology’. The exhibition, presented by the National Geographic Society, immerses visitors in the world of archaeology on an exciting journey that includes everything from the sets and designs from the Harrison Ford films, to the world’s most amazing archaeological artefacts. Let the adventure begin!
When: From the 22 December 2011 to the 22 September 2012
NEWS FLASH:
Extension to the Valencia Conference Centre is approved
The expansion of the Valencia Conference Centre will attract a greater number of events to the city. During a year in which the city continues to grow, the Valencia Conference Centre will be extended, with a new building that will meet the high demand for holding conferences and meetings in the city.
The city of Valencia, a national leader in terms of business tourism, comes tenth in Europe and third in Spain in the ranking of international conferences, excluding capital cities. This type of tourism accounts for 33% of the city’s total overnight stays, i.e.: more than a million hotel rooms occupied during 2011.
Since the Conference Centre first opened its doors in 1998, it has hosted over 2,000 events for a total of more than 1.5 million people. Furthermore, in 2010 it was declared the World’s Best Convention Centre by the International Association of Congress Centres (AIPC).
The new extension, also designed by the renowned British architect Norman Foster with a style in keeping with the existing building, will include a solar panel and will be located next to the current building. The two buildings will be linked by a glass corridor. Building work is expected to be completed in the autumn of 2014. The new multi-use facilities will be suitable for all types of events, helping to position Valencia as the global city of choice for many organisations looking to hold events.
D&P is now on facebook !!! 
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***D&P is at your disposal to provide an attractive program together with the attendance to the above mentioned events and activities for your guests and peers, just let us know your target and requirements and we will design a proposal that matches your expectations and budget, HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!
