17 January 2012 MADRID Tuesday

With the temperature predicted at -3 degrees, we only left the apartment at midday to make our way via autobus and metro to the city centre.  Despite the continued difficulties of the language barrier, we have found Madrid people do try hard to help and managed to order 3 capuccino's and a green tea to take away!  We hopped on the hop-on hop-off bus and enjoyed the magnificent sights of the old buildings. We stopped at the Sabatini Gardens and Palace yesterday and had a walk around the pristine formal garden maze, lunched on paella and sangria and continued on the tour.  I can't tell you any of the history - go to wikipedia for that, it was all too fast, too foreign and too much, but here are one or two of my favourite pics.

City Gate

Miraculously we managed to find our way home, after realising we had not taken any landmarks of our bus stop. A little later we made our way back to the city centre for dinner and a Flamenco show, organised by friends.  Excellent Spanish food and intimate atmosphere and great company at Corral de la Panchero made for a memorable night out.

Danced with so much passion - it was moving to watch.

Now that we knew our landmarks for the bus ride home, we were confident of finding our way - except our bus driver didn't know our stop!  Nevertheless, when we recognised our surroundings I stood up in a split second and announced so the whole bus load could hear "There's our stop" - apparently a few people chuckled but I was too stressed to notice.