Friday 21 Sept

Left the campsite at 9 00 am and drove 4.30 hours to Madrid We camped in Valdebernardo, on a long -stay free huge supermarket car park, where there were a few other vans parked overnight, but mostly it housed Spanish motorhomes parked there long term it seemed We caught the metro in to Madrid,a very handsome city, see a couple of photos taken of some buildings en route to El Prado. We took the metro on line 9, changed to line 2 , got out at Sol and then had a 10 minute walk to El Prado museum at 4.30pm in suffocating heat. What an elegant city! One large very crowded cafe had big fans sprinkling water mists onto grateful tourists... In El Prado ,we appreciated the main artists Velasquez,('Ladies in waiting' and El Greco ) and his good mate, Rubens, Breughel the elder, El Greco and the hallucinatory Hieronymous Bosch and his amazingly surrealistic triptych (4 centuries before Dali came on the scene). We were very tired (El Prado is a a really confusing museum to navigate around, guides offer to show you round privately for 20€ per hour and after 3 hours of the place we wished we had invested in one), so we made our way back to the supermarket car park (van unvandalised despite my concerns , so Andy's confidence was vindicated (this time!)). Beans on toast and bed. Very little air in the van and a fitful sleep. Andy's bashed knee is slowly healing, sympathy still welcome).

Madrid

Add caption

 

Knee damage, now well on the way to healing!