Sat 28th Sept - Tues 01 Oct (Week 1)

Sat 28th - So, our first stop on our round-the-world trip.
Madrid wasn't on our "must-see" list for this trip, but you have to stop here with the OneWorld ticket in order to get to S.America, so we thought we may as well spend a couple of days here as we haven't been to Madrid before.

Not great first impressions however, as we arrived in pouring rain, with the forecast for more rain for our entire stay.

Our hostel for the first night - Mucho Madrid - was pretty basic, and also not great first impressions, but once we got used to the creaky floorboards, tiny bathrooms and paper thin walls, it actually had everything we needed and we slept very well !

Our first evening, we headed to my friend Ellies bar - BristolBar and had a huge gin&tonic while Brandon had a bright pink cocktail ! Both excellent, and a lovely bar, if slightly pricey at €19 for the 2 drinks - there goes our budget straight away ! Just a real shame that Ellie wasn't around to catch up.

Sun 29th - Spent the first day seeing the usual tourist central sights - such as the Sunday market at El Rastro, Plaza Mayor, Plaza de la Puerto del Sol, Palacio Real, and all the places inbetween. Spent about 5 hours wandering leisurely around, and saw lots of beautiful buildings and amazing food stalls in the markets (Mercado).

Our final stop was the Templo de Debod which was very interesting. It was one of the temples from the Abu Simbel area of Egypt which was moved over here before they flooded the area and lost all the temples. It had a great display of all the temples in the valley which would have been flooded, and where in the world they've been moved to.
We did the Nile cruise and Abu Simbel in 2011, and didn't see any model like that.

Our hostel for the other 3 nights - U Hostel - was incredible. White, clean, huge tv/cinema room, lots of bathrooms, and just in a different league from Mucho Madrid for the same price !

Mon 30th - Our second day was a tour around the Plaza de Toros - apparently the most important bullring in the world. It was very impressive and informative, although I did feel a little queasy looking at all the pictures of matadors being gorged and the bulls being killed !
Then we had a nice wander around the Parque del Buen Retiro for a few hours before coming back to the hostel for a well deserved siesta !

Tues 1st Oct - For our final day, we took a bus for 90mins out to Segovia which we'd see on a Globe Trekker programme a few weeks ago.
It actually turned out to be our favourite day so far - lovely historic town, with an amazing Roman aqueduct, cathedral and castle. Probably also helped that today was the nicest weather and actually had some warm sun !
Spent 4 hours wandering around, and really liked the atmosphere, the size of the town, and the stunning sights. Would be tempted to stay here next time for a few days, rather than Madrid.

Struggled a bit with the food in Madrid. We're not big tapas fans - especially when its just the two of us, on a budget. We don't really fancy standing around drinking with little bits of food! And being a capital European city, the prices are higher than we expected, so its quite hard to eat well and stay in budget.
The first night we had Greek tapas - standing up in a market, second night was Spanish tapas, and weren't overly impressed, third night we copped out and had burger and chips, and fourth night we slummed it and had salad, baguette and ham in the hostel !!

Overall we've enjoyed our time in Madrid, nice way to ease us into it, but looking forward to less expensive places, and feeling more travellery, rather than just a European city break.

So, one flight down, 30 or so to go ! Or put another way, one country down, 20 or so to go !

No idea what wifi will be like in Venezuela, or Los Roques, so next update might be from Peru.