Motorhomes, Motorways, Madness and Madrid

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After finishing work today we jumped in the car and headed up to Preston. Jason and Kirstyn arrived in the UK yesterday and were at Bernie and Shaun’s when we arrived. We awoke to another wet and miserable UK day and headed out to Liverpool airport which was at high alert due to the recent terrorism threat. Mick managed to talk the staff at the airport bar into putting on game 3 of the State of Origin and we watched the first half with a beer before boarding the flight to Madrid. There we were met by a rep who took us to the motor home place and, after some paperwork and a stern warning from the girl there about taking the home into Pamplona, we were on our way. We immediately got lost and ended up on random motorways going in all directions before finding our caravan park.

The next morning we took the very efficient metro into town and found a great little tapas restaurant where the owners were obviously big bull fighting fans and had lots of pictures and stuffed bull’s heads. We then took a walking tour of the major sights, mostly older churches and interesting architecture. We made our way to the Plaza Mayor, filled with restaurants and a place for people to sit and spend some time. We continued on, checking out beautiful buildings and soaking up the atmosphere. After our walk we got on the metro again and headed out to Estadio Santiago Bernabeu, the home of Real Madrid soccer team. The tours of the ground were expensive so we just walked around the ground and stole a peek in at the pitch before heading in to the restaurant district. After a couple of beers at “La Musa”, a very cool bar, we continued on for a meal of tapas and then had some drinks at another bar. All in all we had a great time in Madrid but definately advise against motorhomes in Spanish cities, especially when you don't have any decent maps!

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Photos

Plaza de Espana
They love their statues around here

Cheers
The entire restaurant was decked out with bull-fighting paraphrenalia including stuffed bulls heads!

Iglesia de San Andres
One of the many churches

Estadio Santiago Bernabeu
It was too expensive to go inside so this is a close as we got!