More From Madrid, Spain

Let’s just say that Madrid has surprised us with it’s charm and culture. We’ve had a lot of fun here so far, and that’s not even counting the great concert we attended. Even more than Barcelona, here there is a real sense of community and long into the night every day of the week there are people living it up amongst their friends in the bars and in the streets. In fact, to give you a glimpse of peoples schedules, here is a brief breakdown according to our local tour guide yesterday from the visitor’s center:

2pm-4pm: lunch time - basically all the shops close down to enjoy lunch at home or with friends. Also, up until lunch people say good morning, regardless of the time of day.

9pm-12am: dinner time - if you show up at a restaurant at 8:30pm chances are you might be the first people to sit down to dinner. Things happen very late around here.

Midnight-3am: bars get busy - this is the time when restaurants are closed but people still want to go out so the bars are the place to be.

3am-7am: the bars close and the discotecs open - if you hadn’t gotten enough nightlife already then you’ll be itching to get some dancing in until dawn.

No wonder things don’t open until later in the morning here, and no Jillian and I didn’t adopt this schedule during our visit, except for the dinner part. You can feel that the city has a lot of history, and the people are very passionate about their culture. We can totally see how Madrid and Barcelona have developed such the rivalry that exists today regarding which city is better- we like them both! Here are some pictures from our couple days in this great place…