Last week I went to Madrid for a post-exams break. Here are five exciting facts I learned about Spanish capital whilst we were there:
The Santiago Bernabeu is amazing – despite being named after a noted Fascist, the home of Real Madrid really is quite astonishing. I went to New Wembley last month and I’ve been to the Nou Camp, and the Bernabeu is easily the match of both of these. As a stadium it has unusually steep banked stands so that even in the top tier you are only a few metres away from the pitch. The atmosphere must be awesome.
Tapas is rubbish – described by my mate Dave as ‘s**t buffet’, tapas has to be the most underwhelming national dish ever. Basically you order a small amount of a number of food stuffs as a group – meatballs, salmon, potato, whatever – and then mix and match to your pleasure. Unfortunately it all just seems a little pointless. Why not just order a substantial amount of a meal you actually want.
Pick pocketing is rife – we had an incident with a guy on the metro. Fortunately he was caught in the act, however it was still pretty shocking. Apparently most tourists are targeted at some point whilst they are staying in Madrid. You have been warned!
Madrid zoo could do with a little modernisation – on one level I really liked Madrid zoo. It was compact and they had virtually every animal that you would like to see at a zoo. However this was all rather ruined by the actual design of the place, which seemed to have been constructed out of the remains of a multi-story car park. Whilst its compactness was a benefit for the tourist, I’m not sure the animals were so impressed. Certainly a worrying large number of them appeared to have mange.
The metro is always full – given the bizarre working days most Spanish people live there appears to be no ‘rush hour’ as such in Madrid. Whenever we went out on the metro I seemed to end up squashed in between about fifty other people. Not great for passenger comfort, but brilliant for our friend the pick-pocket.
Filed under: Uncategorized | 4 Comments
Tags: football, madrid, santiago bernabeu, spain, tapas, travel
HOW can you be so IGNORANT as to say that “Tapas are rubbish”?! It’s not pointless, they’re a VARIATION of the substantial everyday meal, it’ SUPPOSED to be different, that’s why countries and places are different, and thet’s why you visit them, to see DIFFERENT things, or would you prefer every corner of the world to just stick with the old steak-and-fries? If that’s the case, just stay home and eat your substantial meals for the rest of your life.
Oh, and it’s not a “national dish”, because it’s not one dish, it’s a variety of them. A national dish is Paella or Cocido, for example, not tapas.
To be fair I really enjoying trying tapas and I’d definitely recommend anyone going to Spain to give it a go, but in my opinion it was just a bit lame.
it is the biggest stadium i have ever seen.
i LURVE tapas it is great