Blogs from Madrid, District of Madrid, Spain, Europe - page 4

Wednesday we hopped a train to Madrid. Matrid is located almost directly center of Spain and like Logrono is surrounded by low lands of scrub brush and lots of olive trees. It has a population of about 3.5 million with a metropolitan area of about 6 million. Many of the buildings are fairly recent (since about the 18th century) because of the down turn of Spain after spending all their money fighting the British and the French during the 1500s and 1600s. In th early 19th century, Madrid looked more like a small town than a modern city. During the 20th century the popultion doubled. After the death of Franco and the start of the democratic regime, the 1978 constitution confirmed Madrid as the capital of Spain. Benefitting from increasing prosperity in the 1980's and 1990's, ... read more

I’m writing this on the train on our way from Madrid to Cordoba – I’ve been slacking bigtime with the travel blogging. Guess we’re just having too much fun! I try to do this blog mostly for myself so that I can look back and remember the best parts of our trips and what I liked and didn’t like, so I am going to try to do my Madrid/Toledo/Cordoba recap all in two blog posts if I can! Here it goes the first which will be mainly Madrid… Saturday around noon, we arrived in Madrid and made it to our hotel – Hotel Ritz Madrid. I assumed that it was part of the Ritz Carleton chain, but apparently there are several Hotel Ritz’s around Europe. I believe that the Ritz of the Ritz Carleton chain is ... read more

We started the day at home and went to a market called Mercado de San Miguel. It had a lot of different food. I chose two salami and tomato baguettes and a cone of real potato chips. We walked to a park and on the way Daddy and I went on a two story carousel. We went on a carriage that rocked side to side. The park had paddle boats, it was called Parque del Buen Retiro. I read a book called the Land of Stories (thanks William) on a picnic rug next to the lake on a grassy hill. Because you only had 45 minutes on the boat, Zoe and I swapped places. I saw dead fish in the lake and real fish and a turtle. Daddy let me row and I was really good ... read more

Mission accomplished, research completed and beautiful building seen without hoards of shoppers - a good morning. The invoice will be going to QVG Capital as we are pretty sure we can't claim the trip as a tax deduction! That comment is to see if Chris is actually reading his parent's blog!!!!!!! We are now waiting to go to the airport listening to the helicopter circling overhead checking out the lie of the land before the Vuelta (correct name for the Tour d'Espagna) finishes around 10.30pm. We had a hilarious trip back with the cab driver who was obviously of the opinion that if he spoke louder these crazy foreigners would understand what he was saying. It must have worked as we realised he was saying he might need to detour (much arm circling) to get back ... read more

Day 1 Madrid Our apartment is on the third floor of a very old building it has a very crooked staircase and we were told to be quiet when we went in and out of it.We have a balcony looking down at a restaurant and looking forward at another apartment. In Spain I don't think I saw one house, there all cute apartments that look the same .In our apartment there are two bedrooms, one with a double bed that mum and dad sleep on with an ensuite and a tiny study with a window that you hang your laundry on the washing lines and it is a pulley system. The other room has two single beds one with a shelf which was a bit higher than mine for Zoe and because it is so high ... read more