.......i'll have eaten albondigas and patatas bravas in El Brillante, chorizo in El Gaucho, that potato and chorizo concoction from the miserable old bloke on Calle Arenal, sampled corn on the cob from one of those street vendors and guzzled vino tinto and Spanish beer aplenty

Off to bed now and then up early to leave for Self Pity City Airport

What a wonderful (3rd) trip to Madrid!

Stayed at Hostal Lopez (as always)

El Brillante as good as ever (but pricier?)
Albondigas and Bocadillo de Callamari

Went in Las Bravas for the first time - VERY spicy, even for a curry lover!

Casa Mingo was nice but not what I expected - had a picture of somewhere smaller and more intimate. It's on Paseo del Florida rather than Avenida Vallodolid as stated elsewhere on this board - get the metro to Principe Pio rather than walking all the way from the Palacio Real as suggested

Found an excellent bar just off Plaza Mayor - a Belgian tapas bar if you can have such a thing!? Stella as good as I've ever tasted and excellent Patatas Bravas, tasty as opposed to spicy sauce. Reasonably priced aswell which is rare in that area.

Excellent bar on Cava baja called La Camarilla - try the tostas with goats cheese (we did TWICE!)

Any Brits who want to bring back their full quota of fags e-mail me at "notyor@yahoo.co.uk" - have found a bloke who will go and get you however many you want with enough notice

3 whole weeks to wait til I'm off to Barca now - god bless Easyjet :p

Glad to know you had a good time in Madrid, notyor! Coincidentally I was reading your original posting just this morning and assumed you were back by now.

You wrote: NOTICE TO NON-BRITS: "Fags" = cigarettes (we Yanks always giggle when we read this)

jajajajajajajaja, thanks for the clarification on the Fags MM, Ive definitely never heard that and could not figure out for the life of me when i first read it what in the world that was talking about

no, I was talking about homosexual people trafficking