Madrid

Wednesday 15th – Thursday 16th April

We made our way to Madrid and found our lodgings for the next two nights, the Acta Madfor on the the edge of the city. The hotel was basic but fine for our needs and had a great view over the hills from the back of the building.

We walked up the road to the nearest Metro station, passing some interesting looking buildings that had fallen in to a decrepit state. Taking the train in to the centre we had a walk around and generally explored the place, having a nice meal and a few drinks before walking back to the hotel through the palace gardens.

The next day we went on a guided tour of the city, joining a small bus of people with a tour guide. We were driven past several of the churches and palaces around the city, all of them seemed well maintained but cold an unwelcoming.

Having been to Rome, which is packed with amazing old buildings the difference was tangible, everything in Rome has a feeling of shared historical connection. Madrid never felt that way to me, the buildings were on display, but even the ones which were open to the public seemed unwelcoming.

We were let off the bus at the bull ring to have a look around, it is a very impressive building even if its function is a barbaric one.

The bus dropped us off at the Museo Del Prado, the foremost museum in Madrid and spent a good few hours looking around the exhibits and displays. It has a fascinating collection telling much of the history of Spain, well worth a visit if you are in the area, but it is much like the Louvre, you could spend a whole day there and not see it all.

All in all I can’t say that I enjoyed Madrid much, I never got a comfortable feeling about the place and it seemed all too much like order had been imposed on the place rather than anything developing naturally. It may be that I wasn’t in the best frame of mind to fully appreciate the place, I was fighting off a cold at the time, but it’s not somewhere I’ll be in a hurry to go back to.