MADRID (SPAIN)

As just a 2 day stopover between Rio de Janeiro and London, I found Madrid to be an interesting enough place, without providing anything trully spectacular. Whilst I was there the weather was extremely hot and as such I took the opportunity to take 3-4 hour siestas during the middle of the day so as to avoid walking around sweating my bollocks off. I found it quite interesting to visit Spain after having spent such a long time in South America and to compare the two, given that many spanish influences were passed onto countries such as Argentina, Peru, Chile and Bolivia from the spanish colonists. Despite similarities between these 2 regions, I did feel that the spanish were not quite as open and friendly as their latin american counterparts and perhaps considered themselves too sophisticated to be concerned with tourists much. Still, I thoroughly enjoyed my brief visit to Madrid and during my time there I managed to look around a few museums, one of the city cathedrals and the royal palace. Probably my lasting memory of Madrid was the sight of people eating and drinking outside from about 5pm through to almost 10pm at night, something that I had noticed in South America but definately not to the same extent.

Photos 1&2: Royal Palace and the Cathedral.