Saturday 4 April 2015

50 Cities of the World #18 Madrid


Today we are checking-in a city quite near me.

Today we're going to Madrid!

You might not know but we used to be a bunch of kingdoms in Iberia and one of them settled first and back in 1143 Portugal was born.

The rest of the kingdoms kept fighting each other until they were united under the name of Spain.

That's how we got to be two countries in this peninsula.

But! Spain never stopped wanting us and for that dream they've built the city of Madrid quite in the middle of the peninsula.

They thought it would be the capital for us all. You've missed it!

We had some issues and we got under Spain domain once again (family problems as usual...) and then back in 1640 we put them to run and we were independent again!



So...I just told that to explain why Madrid is in the center of the peninsula, like stated in the card back, the equi-distant thing.

Not going under any more likings/dislinkings ;)


Madrid has great monuments including the palaces that are the home to their royal family.

During the Franco era they did not have a king but after his fall Juan Carlos took the throne again and a couple of years ago he's son got to be the new king.

It is a foreign and quite medieval thing to still have a king/queen for some outer Europe people. But I must say that I still like it. It has all to do with our history.

They don't rule like before. But they are a figure to look up and unite people. That's why Monarchy got popular again in this last past 10 years or so.


 Like I said in many other posts I prefer cities by the sea or river. So, if you are like me Madrid will seem too hot and dry. If you go there in the middle of the Summer you will have very high temperatures.

But you'll have lots to see!

And don't forget to try some paella and tapas.


I won't talk about football here because I'm all Barcelona fan so I don't have nothing to do with Madrid teams ;)


Check Madrid's wiki page for more info.

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