Madrid - Tapatastic

For pictures from the trip click here.

In the middle of plenty of trips for Anna and I, we also managed to fit in a short weekend trip to Madrid with Deb & Carl. Why Madrid? Well, we have heard plenty of people mention that it is a very cool place to visit, and we also wanted to get our last fill of fantastic Spanish tapa's....

Arriving Friday night and pretty hungry we headed into downtown Madrid. Not wanting to stick too much as tourists, we endeavoured to stay our hunger until the locals go out to eat and started off with a few drinks at the brewpub Naturbier - their Helles was quite pleasant (it even tickled the taste buds of Fosters-loving Carl), but their Dunkel needs some work. Feeling that we had left it late enough to join the Spanish late-dinner, we started the circuit around the very pleasant Plaza Santa Ana, dropping into this and that Tapa bar and tickling our taste buds on another level. This set the course for the evening and it wasn't until the early hours of the morning that we made our back towards our hotel. Though despite the hour, it seemed Madrid was very much alive, and we got waylaid ourselves by the Chocolateria de San Gines - famous for its chocolate con churros. Maybe it was the hour, or maybe we were just too full of tapa's and sangria, but the thick hot chocolate just wasn't for us - though it certainly seemed popular with the locals.

We started the next morning with a walking tour around the city and then spent the rest of the afternoon walking around ourselves. Madrid struck me as quite a "liveable" city, very open with lots of wide avenues, plaza's and parks. Very different to Barcelona or Seville, not nearly as touristy and with a more relaxed feel to it. I guess that is because there isn't a lot of specific tourist stuff to do. Something I am finding I prefer in my destinations, as you tend to get more of a feel for the place rather than rushing around continuously from one site to the next. What better to do when you go away on holiday than to gently amble around a new city, randomly stopping in to the odd bar for a drink or tapa, and moving on again.

Though we did also manage to fit in a visit to Real Madrid's impressive Bernabeu Stadium on Saturday afternoon - where the museum proudly displays their numerous trophies and awards (including 9 Champions League and FIFA's Team of the 20th Century). We also found ourselves bunkering down in the manager's seat in the Stadium as a one of the largest thunder storms I have ever seen came through (apart from that crazy hour, we had great sunny weather all weekend).

The next day we joined the locals in their Sunday promenading in the El Retiro park, before stopping off at our favourite Tapa's bar one more time and one patatas bravas too many!

Another bonus of the trip was flying out of London City airport. On our return it took no more than five minutes from exiting the plane to exiting the terminal altogether (for those of you who haven't experienced Heathrow, Gatwick or the dreaded Stansted - this can be classed as a small miracle) - even the passport control officers were friendly! Just a relaxed finish to a relaxed weekend.

You can also see Deb & Carl's take on trip here.