So, I've just come back to Blighty from 4 days in Madrid, much surprised that we still have the same Prime Minister as we had when we left. It was a game of 2 halves, some good and some not quite going as advertised. Me and my mucker originally booked the trip because we had finally got permission to visit the Armour Museum on the El Goloso Army base outside Madrid. Naturally, days after booking flights and hotel, the buggers switched the date of the visit so we couldn't get to see it
The trip kicked off well with a two hour delay at Gatwick as something important had fallen off our plane so they had to find a replacement.
Anyhow, day 1 saw us at the Museo del Aire, which I would recommend to anyone who finds themselves in Madrid. The main hangar has had a major revamp in so much as, where before a lot of planes were crowded into the hangar, some have been moved to other hangars and the rest are posed in individual scenes, the path through them showing a better history of the Spanish Air Force. Unfortunately, they have gone for very low lighting, so photography was a challenge (going to have to attack my pics with Photoshop before posting); I saw one guy using flash and getting jumped on by the museum inquisitors (sorry, attendants). Sadly, the one plane I wanted to get another look at - the Heinkel IIIE-1 (the only surviving one) - wasn't there any more. I surmise its removal was because it was a Condor Legion aircraft and not really Spanish so didn't quite fit into the thematic process. It had been removed to the restoration hangar together with their CASA 2-111, which was closed to the public.
Day 2 was taken up with the Museo Naval, another excellent museum. They had a temporary exhibition of the Spanish in the American War of Independance which was illuminating, but strangely not a lot about Trafalgar for some reason.
Day 3 was a major dog's breakfast. The Army Museum in the Alcazar in Toledo is one of the best museums I've seen, rebuilt as it is on the archaeological remains of previous Fortresses going back for centuries, all of which are visible before entering the main army museum - which was closed! Apparently they had had a minor fire a couple of months previously which fortunately didn't do any lasting damage to exhibits, but they were still clearing up smoke damage to the building. Now, any sensible museum in this situation might have stuck a big notice on their website to the effect that the museum was closed, but not the jolly old Spaniards.
The problem with this is that the Madrid-Toledo rail line is busy so you have to book seats in advance, so we had 3 and a half hours to kill before our train back to Madrid. Fortunately the fire didn't affect the museum bar. An hour and a bit in there and we toddled back to the station via another bar, so by the time our train arrived we were feeling no pain.
The last day was given over to retail therapy - going round the games shops and buying stuff to earn Good Boy vouchers from the wife. Madrid has a couple of large bookshops with very good military sections, so I was able to feed my Spanish Civil War fetish quite well. So, all in all, a reasonable trip even if we didn't get to see all that we wanted.
EDIT: and to round things off, I just tested positive for Covid
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