MADrid

It wasn't really MAD although it was rad.

With Andrew visiting San Sebastian wasn't big enough for the both of us, so the both of us went somewhere bigger – Madrid.

I would be lying if I said Madrid wasn't awash with beautiful women, so I won't. Also Madrid in summer is well supplied with alfresco dining and drinking options all the better for the beautiful women of Madrid to catch a glimpse of me as I sip stylishly at my espresso – or so I imagine. If that wasn't enough entertainment for one lifetime there is also more high quality art than you can possibly eat and food that should be hung in the Louvre (or Prado in this case). There are also palaces, and fine shops, and more bars, then some restaurants, odd lifts and some more bars – suffice it to say that we had a good time.

The stand out however had to be the Sherry bar that one late night we stumbled into demanding Armenac.

It is an odd bar that wont allow you to take photos but they would not. The till was a hand cranker from the 30s, the sherry was served from the barrel into anonymous brown bottles then chilled in an ice bucket at the bar. The ancient staff marked your tab in chalk on the bar in front of you as you drank and whole place had the sepia tint from the exhalations of a hundred years of smokers.

Andrew and I became connoisseurs of differently aged sherry whilst admiring the faded posters advertising the world sherry festivals of the fifties and sixties. The din of a busy Madrid evening was inaudible replaced by the murmurings of the gaggle of local sherry lovers clustered around the end of the bar. A quite magical experience but on leaving you were left with the nagging suspicion that if you ever attempted to return you would not be able to find that bar again, and no one in the street would ever have heard of it....