Madrid

A couple of weeks ago I made my first foray onto Spanish soil. My friend Betul & I went to Madrid for Easter weekend.
We skived off work on Thursday and caught the red eye flight from Gatwick to Madrid. Our hostel 'Los Amigo's Sol" in the centre of town was possibly the most conveniently located hostel I've stayed at.
Betul gave her high school Spanish a bit of a dust off which greatly improved over the weekend, it was much better than my farcical attempts at communication. I am such a ignoramus as far as languages goes. (I do feel spurred on to learn Spanish now though, I did pick up bits and pieces whilst there and enjoyed the challenge)

We spent a morning in the Reina Sofia Art gallery which was really cool, I've decided I quite like contemporary/pop art. Seeing all the Picasso works was interesting - I had no idea how prolific an artist he was & how many mediums he worked in. A highlight for me was seeing some works by Rafael Solbes, unfortunately it was a no photos zone and his work doesn't seem to be widely published on the net so this is an example of his work that I didn't actually see:

That afternoon we made our way to Stadio Bernabeu - the stadium of Real Madrid. This was really cool because of the sheer size of it and all the legend surrounding the club (and all the trophies!). Did you realise they were officially named club of the century by Fifa?! I sure didn't (not that I'm an avid football fan)

Panorama

Trophy Room

Betul & I holding a press conference...

We spent another morning in the Prado Museum, the Prado houses mostly 12th - 19th century works, mainly of Spanish origin or influence. In general it didn't really float my boat that much - there's only so many different representations of the crucifiction or the virgin Mary that I can look at in one sitting. There were some pretty cool works though, I especially liked some of the Goya collection, here's a goodie:

Here are some photos taken of the street art outside:

That evening we went to a Flamenco evening with an Argentinian couple staying in our dorm, it was cool, but short. Worth it depending on how much value you put on culture!

I spent my last afternoon looking for serenity in the Botanical Gardens while Betul went shopping (final haul: 3 pairs of shoes & 2 handbags. I will never understand women!). Unfortunately about 5 thousand other people were in the park (possibly looking for the same serenity) so instead I wandered around aimlessly, here are some photos from on the way:

That's about it really, Madrid was a really cool place to visit, there's enough to do for a weekend - whether you are looking for culture, shopping, food, boozing or just plain relaxing. I think I'll be going back to Spain at some point...