Madrid - SPAIN

SATURDAY 14TH NOVEMBER 1998

The sounds of children playing awoke me and the surrounding landscape presented itself - a site so richly endowed with dirt. As I walked over to the shower block the roaring engines of aircraft bellowed overhead and the smell of the city and the nights revelry pervaded through.

It was 1pm before we left to savour the delights of Madrid, after Dave completed three loads of washing. The metro turned out to be 500 metres away and we were soon whisked towards the centre in what Dave described as a "tin box". Madrid's metro is certainly not the flashest one around, but it does offer a plethora of stations taking you into the furtherest reaches of the city. We stepped onto the platform in our Sunday best and set off for an afternoon in the Prado Art Gallery, coffee and tapas on the plaza, The Truman Show (in English) and a portion of dinner in Madrid's oldest restaurant at a quarter to twelve!!

The Prado is one of Madrid's three tantalising galleries and in my opinion the best. The gallery is a maze of rooms filled with scores of masterpieces and as it was the weekend it was free. The building was completed by the end of the 18th century, a Palace conceived to be a museum of science. For a short time during the Napoleonic period it became a barracks and then, after the Spanish regained their empire, King Ferdinand VII filled it with over 300 Spanish paintings inspiring the country's wealth of artists. We spent a good four hours tasting its delights which include scores of works by Velazquez, El Greco, Goya and other Spanish artists of note. The walls are also adorned with a wealth of other European artists including Titian, Tintoretto, Rubens and Bosch (another Flemish genius that depicted the conflicting images of both heaven and hell, predating Dali's style by some 400 years).

The next half an hour was spent strolling down Calle de la Huertas towards Plaza de Santa Ana, chock a block full of bars, restaurants and nightclubs. A nearby cinema was playing the Truman Show, something we've been trying to see since our departure from Britain and thankfully it was on. Although we did traipse across town to Plaza Espana to see what the "Leicester Square" of Madrid was playing and it was to no avail. After two hours on the go we returned to the first cinema and purchased tickets for the 8:30pm session. Our legs took us back to Plaza de Santa Ana and we munched on coffee and salmon tapas at a bar, whilst the streets outside began to fill with all walks of life.

Truman turned out just as good as we'd thought it would be and as I left the cinema that universal feeling of displacement fell over me. Whilst watching the movie I was taken back to times spent at home (at Hoyts or Warner) and felt rather displaced on the street outside as the vibrancy of life and a foreign sound caught me unawares. It usually takes a few moments to realize that you're half way across the world from home.

It took nearly 2 hours to find a place to eat. All the streets are filled with restaurants and bars, but nothing took our fancy. Just south of touristy Plaza Mayor we stumbled across Madrid's oldest restaurant and settled down to a three course meal in its cozy interior adorned with wooden beams, vibrantly painted wooden wall panels (reminiscent of ones found in churches) and a barrage of finely dressed waiters and chefs in whites working their way between kitchen and tables. We ordered a bottle of house red, whilst I chose the roast chicken casserole finishing off with strawberries and cream, and the tastiest blend of coffee imaginable.

Madrid is such a vibrant city, where its atmosphere is more striking than most of its architecture. Its not in many cities that the majority of diners arrive at 11:30pm, whilst some nightclubs don't even open their doors until 6:00am. We ended up catching the last metro home at 2am and were bombarded again by the local party contained in the campsite bar. After a thoroughly exhausting day all we could do was fall asleep straight on our pillows. There's two ways to do Europe, one is to party hard all night and sleep all day. The other is to take in its monuments, atmosphere and foreign charm during daylight hours and spend some of the evening soaking up the delights of the hours after dark. Unfortunately you can't do both at the same time.