Madrid - Holiday in the Capital

Hola gente guapa,

after spending a reasonable amount of time in Catalonia and visiting the surrounding cities of Barcelona, like Terragona and Girona, I was eager to finally travel to the capital of Spain, namely Madrid.
This time, after usually travelling with friends, and due to the awesome scheduling of my final exams, I decided to travel on my own instead.

After meeting a lot of people from all over Spain, including Madrileneans, I experienced this existing competition between Barcelona and Madrid, and usually one city is favoured over the other by most people I got to know. Therefore I wanted to experience the differences by myself.

Tapas
Madrid has a even greater Tapas culture than Barcelona. On every corner you will find tapas bars like El Tigre, where you can have something to drink and some tapas for an rediculously cheap price (below 3€ for drink+tapa). In Madrid there is also an unofficial law, which says that to every drink, a free tapa has to be served. This can be olives, patatas pravas or some sausages - whatever there is in the kitchen.
In general I would say, that the tapas and restaurant culture in Madrid is even more distinct than in Barcelona, due to the immense amount of places all over the city.

Motto

Fui sobre agua edificada,

mis muros de fuego son.

The city's motto can be translated into something like: "On water I was built, my walls are made of fire". Instead of most other capital cities in Europe, Madrid is not located on a river. Instead there was only a small creek running down the ancient street Segovia. Nevertheless, people found a huge underground source of water, such that the water supply for the population was secured.
The second part refers to the walls created with flint stone, which were built to protect the Arabs who used to lived there in Medieval times. To get to know more about the history of Madrid, I can highly recommend taking a tour by Sandeman's. I have taken their free tours in several cities in Europe now, and they were always more than entertaining.

Picture time

Out on a pub crawl :-)

Next to the Kilometre Zero - at La Puerta del Sol -, the center of Spain, where all the streets
 to Barcelona, Toledo etc. started in the past.

I met a lot of amazing people on the trip to Madrid,
including those two girls from Singapore.

mmmmh churros con chocolat again....<3

The world's oldest restaurant, opened in 1725

Officially confirmed by the Guinness World Records

On every street sign, a small picture is painted which showes
 the place in an historical context.

In front of the stadium Santiago Bernabeu

Cristina, a Spanish friend I haven't seen in a long time. Thank you for the warm welcome!!

At the Plaza Mayor

Catedral de la Santa Maria de Almudena

The Royal Palace

El Templo de Debod, a temple build in Egyptian style

Finally maybe for some the most important question: Do I prefer Barcelona or Madrid?
Honestly I can't answer this question without being unfair, since the time I have spent in Barcelone exceeds that 3-day trip to Madrid by far. All in all Madrid seems to be an amazing place to live and I incredibly enjoy that typical café-culture there. Nevertheless I think I might miss living next to the sea and having the possibility to spend some time at the beach all day :-)

Ending with that, hasta luego!