Saturday 26 March

16C Sunny to cloudy

Didn't wake up till 10.30 this morning, it was such a lovely sleep in. We were too late for the hotel breaky so we walked across the street and grabbed some eggs and bacon, a glass of juice and a coffee which cost around 14 euro for the both of us. Then for 1 euro we caught the bus down town to do a hop on hop off bus tour. Before the tour though we walked around and did a bit of shopping. I got pickpocketed but noticed them before they had time to take anything. Apparently Madrid and Barcelona are renowned for pickpockets so l'll have to hold my backpack instead of wearing it from now on. The buildings are so ornate and beautiful it was hard not to take photos of it all. There were lovely little patisseries and everything looked so good. We went into a shop that sold ham which was so packed with people wanting lunch we moved on very quickly. We found a quieter place for lunch and l had a small baguette with pepper pate, brie and strawberry marmalede on it.....mmmm! After lunch we went on the hop on/off bus and had a look around. The guide was saying there were 212 buildings of importance in Madrid, obviously we didn't see them all. Around 5.30 we hopped off the bus as we had to get back to the hotel for the tour welcome meeting and dinner at 7pm. On the way back to the hotel we saw a mass crowd walking towards a stadium and we wondered what was going on, we soon worked out they were going to watch a soccer game. Wonder if Real Madrid were playing. The welcome meeting and dinner was good and we met some nice people. Tomorrow we have a wakeup call at 6.30 but we'll get up at 6. The tour leaves at 8 and we head for Valencia. The weather today has been really nice and sunny, it even got a little warm this afternoon. It tried to rain but didn't.