Madrid.

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Us and a million other tourists are in Madrid. Although the souks and medinas of Morocco are busy things seem busier here but almost everyone is a tourist here. Judging from the accents, cameras, the hop on hop off tickets you see clutched in hands or the fact that each husband has a map in hand and a partner in tow everyone seems intent on doing tourist things. Even the supermarkets here know what tourists want with water being a big seller.

The train here was really good but I covered that in my previous blog entry. Our new home is fine, functional and fit for purpose but it isn’t a riad! We’ve been spoilt and are now paying the price. But it will more than suffice for 3 of the 4 nights we have here. The last we will move close to the airport as we have an early flight.

We did the tapas sort of thing at the Mercado de San Ildefonso, it’s a market area by day and a gourmet dining destination at night but in tapas style. Very popular with locals and fine by us. As well as the only couple to pay by cash we could have been the parents of anyone else in the building. But the food was pretty good and we could easily go again and sample different dishes. The tapas style is fine but they also have different ethnic dishes so it’s easy to find something good.

We do bus tours tomorrow, the hop on hop off has 2 routes and we should be able to do both. We have a 2 day pass so we will fill a few gaps or revisit bits we like on the following day. Lee has to be careful she doesn’t get too weary as it will be tough enough to acclimatise to the conditions in Doha let alone recover if she tired.

So ciao for now.

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