Madrid is fascinating, highly intriguing with wonderfully interesting people. There are those who sarcastically referred to Madrid as Spain's second city after Barcelona by and large those are the people that have never really got to know Madrid. Now I know Barcelona has the Cathedral, the Nou Camp Stadium and was the venue for the most recent Olympic Games to be held in Spain but to write Madrid off as Spain’s second city seems to miss the point completely. Read more..

Madrid lacks the antiquity of other European capitals. It only became the capital in the second half of the 16th century when Phillip II plucked it from obscurity to become the seat of his court. Read more..

Madrid was named after the arabic word ‘Madjrit’ which means ‘place where there are tunnels’. Therefore the secret tunnels that interconnect the whole city centre of Madrid were real and existed before the muslim occupation, around the 11th century. The islamic legacy was specially rich in terms of knowledge of water distribution and supply. It is thougt that the tunnels were in fact designed to keep a permanent reservoir of water, saving it away from the sun and therefore eluding evaporation. Read more..