Moorish Mayrit, Mozarabic Matrit

It’s finally time I set myself to create the travel guide for my home town. I know it won’t be easy but rather a challenge in order to try to compile the best through my own experience and eyes, and if creating the guide for Barcelona was already a difficult task where of course, there is much more to see and do than what I shared, here I am still even deciding on how I am actually going to structure and divide the sections and areas within the city for the sightseeing list.

But first, let’s start with some interesting facts. Remember that I do not describe in detail the history of the cities in my travel blog; for that you already have Wikipedia, Wikitravel and many other sites on the web, but I do always provide a good input and some notes quite appropriate to give you an idea. Madrid is the largest city in Spain; 3rd largest city after London and Berlin, 3rd largest metropolitan area after London and Paris and 3rd largest GDP in the European Union. Capital of Spain since 1561 when King Philip II moved it from Toledo. It’s the largest transportation and communications hub in the Iberian Peninsula; media, business, banking, commercial, education, fashion, political, arts, entertainment and cultural centre making it one of the world’s major global cities. It is the major financial centre of Southern Europe. Ranking among the most liveliest cities in the world, you will find one of the friendliest and more welcoming people in Europe.

It is quite surprising that most of the tourists Spain receives per year do not consider visiting Madrid and instead quickly go to the Mediterranean coast, Andalusia, the islands, and the most visited city in Spain, Barcelona. And shocking in the other hand, it is for many people in the UK to believe that the capital of Spain is Barcelona. I get into such comments quite frequently where I have to teach politely the people a little bit of geography and basic history. (more…)