Spain has a wonderful cuisine based upon an abundance of fantastic ingredients. To start their day a cup of strong cafe con leche or strong hot chocolate and a sweet roll. By midmorning a tapas of Iberian ham or some other savoury to tide them over to comeda, lunch, which is eaten at 2-3pm. From what we saw lunch can be a large meal and on the weekends the restaurants were packed with families and extended families out for a large elaborate lunch meal. Dinner is ...

Madrid has some of the best art galleries in the world. What I have seen here competes with Paris, London, Berlin and NYC. The surprise to me are the impressive late 19th and early 20th century Spanish painters. Not too surprising is the vast collections of their art in this city. My new favourite is Sorolla, we visited his home/gallery today. He was a lucky man as he achieved critical acclaim and financial success in his lifetime. Additionally he was able to kee...

We took a guided bus trip to Avila and Segovia which are two smaller towns approximately 100 Kim's north of Madrid. Both of these towns have very impressive monuments. Avila is in the highlands and was originally settled by the Romans. After the fall of Rome the usual progression of Visigoths defeated by Arabs defeated by Christians etc. etc. etc. In the Middle Ages (1090 ad) the construction of a stone perimeter wall was begun. It is 2500 meters long and enclose...

Sunday in Madrid, blue sky, cool temperatures. We decided to take a break from hardcore tourism and spend the day in the Retiro park with many other Madrilenos. Retiro is a large park in central Madrid with a large lake, rose garden, fountains, trees and coffee shops. As expected, as the morning progressed the park became more crowded with young families and larger extended families. People brought their soccer balls, roller blades and bicycles and dogs. People w...

We travelled to Madrid on the 25th of October via Spain's high speed rail system. We were treated very well and served a delicious hot breakfast. We were served fresh baked rolls with tomato jam and extra virgin olive oil.......remember Spain is the #1 olive exporter. Then on to huevos revolto (scrambled eggs) with baked potatoes. These are über modern trains that travel at 300 km/hr from city centre to city centre. We arrived at Madrid Atocha station in centr...