I have been coming to Madrid since 1982. Let’s be honest, for TOURISTS Barcelona has always been sexier. Most TOURISTS’ favorite city was Barcelona. But as the article says, things have changed. Madrid is now passing Barcelona in the sexy category. To be honest, I love the new Madrid, but I also loved the old Madrid where tourists came and went fast – leaving the real Madrid to me and the Madrilenos.

Mine would be very similar to the one descibed in España Profunda.

Best regards and sorry for the rant…

I thought by inaccurate you meant saying Lavapies was north of the Bernabeu or something like that. Actually, you mean she doesn’t agree with your opinion of Madrid.

(btw, I’m British, not American, and I understand what she is doing)

“POORMadrid (poor, why? we are more than happy, you know).

>She’s being ironic.

Stuck in the middle of Spain (stuck???, so being in the middle of Spain is a bad thing isn’t it?

>Well, it’s a long way from the beach, which is where the majority of tourists want to go when they go to Spain. Not ALL, but the majority – this is why Benidorm has more hotel beds than any other city in Spain. I used to think it was just the Brits who wanted the beach, but I’ve met several Americans who spend their time in Barcelona on the beach and not in the Sagrada Familia.

I didn’t know it, I guess I will have to get depressed now)the city has long been perceived as the provincial, sleepy sister to Barcelona (by whom???, for God’s sake, by whom?? I had never heard such a thing, and Madrid can be anything but sleepy.

>Ask the average Brit the capital of Spain before Beckham went to Madrid and they would have probably said Barcelona. Many people DO think Barcelona=cosmopolitan, Seville=bullfighting, tapas and flamenco and Madrid=industrial capital with a famous football team. When I told friends in England I was moving to Spain, they almost all said “oh, to see Beckham?”. Surprisingly, no one mentioned the wonderful museums or tapas bars.

I guess the readers of the Ny Times coming to Madrid will be disappointed to see no men sleeping in the streets with their mexican hats on, come on, come on!!, that is plain stupid, what can I say?). Even today, you can see little girls dressed exactly as their mothers were (WRONG!!! they are are dressed up, not like 40 years ago!!!), in 1940s-style dresses and matching topcoats(no comments about this, I’m just speechless, how could this girl come to this conclusion). But that is precisely Madrid’s charm” (Jesus Christ!!, really??, is this MAdrid’s charm? In my opinion it is not, the city has many others)

>I guess she’s talking about Madrileño school uniforms, which do have quaint little hats and bows which you don’t see a lot these days. I don’t think she actually means that it is topcoats per se that she loves so much, but maybe its olde worlde cinemas on Gran Via, the tiled walls, bulls’ heads and vermut de grife of the tapas bars, etc. She’s speaking figuratively. And anyway, even if she does mean she loves topcoats, its hardly “inaccurate”, it happssn to be what she likes!

Her comments on Chueca are ok, except for the “piles” of dog waste, but she doesn’t talk about the Reina Sofia Museum, which taking into account it holds Picasso’s Guernica, is a really strange thing.

>Yes, the Reina Sofia is an omission, but I imagine the exclusion of the Reina Sofia was probably cut by the sub editor. Though we read it online, it probably had to fit a newspaper column somewhere (and even webpages have word counts)

Anyway, her selection of tapas Bars is ok, altough I would choose some others, and then we come the my favourite part of the article:

>Not inaccurate then. And bear in mind she has to appeal to tourists, most of which won’t want to leave El Tigre with a serviette stuck to their shoe.

“Madrileños believe that night is the most important time of day (do we? I didn’t know it. This statetment is just ridiculous and you know it).

>Don’t they? Are you saying the majority of young Madrileños that go out from 2am until 10am on Friday night, sleep until 6pm and then do the whole thing again? They wouldn’t do that if it wasn’t their favourite part of the day. I think this is a slightly tongue-in-cheek way of saying “Madrid is famous for its nightlife” which is very true.

To party like a local, head to the multistory tavern El Viajero (WRONG!!, you will find almost NO LOCALS there, most of them young men attracted by the crowds of blonde American tourists trying to party like the locals), or the Traveler (Plaza Cebada, 11; 34-91-366-9064), which draws everyone from women in their 20s in “Flashdance” off-the-shoulder sweatshirts (??????????, I’m speechless again, I wonder if this girl lives in Madrid or in Mars)to men in business suits”

Never been to the Traveler, so I couldn’t comment. But she likes Via Lactea, so she is a lass after my own heart. But any bar she reckons is going to have to cater for tourists to an extent.

This conversation has gone a long way from its starting point. It seems like a misunderstanding of a writer’s irony (not the Alanis Morissette version, the Dickensian one) and some sense of hurt pride from Madrid’s inhabitants has become a critique of the writer’s opinions, which is hardly fair (or indeed what was originally the point, which was her use of “provincial”). But the day journalists start worrying about hurting a city’s pride when writing is the day all papers will go bust.

“POOR Madrid (poor, why? we are more than happy, you know). Stuck in the middle of Spain (stuck???, so being in the middle of Spain is a bad thing isn’t it? I didn’t know it, I guess I will have to get depressed now)the city has long been perceived as the provincial, sleepy sister to Barcelona (by whom???, for God’s sake, by whom?? I had never heard such a thing, and Madrid can be anything but sleepy. I guess the readers of the Ny Times coming to Madrid will be disappointed to see no men sleeping in the streets with their mexican hats on, come on, come on!!, that is plain stupid, what can I say?). Even today, you can see little girls dressed exactly as their mothers were (WRONG!!! they are are dressed up, not like 40 years ago!!!), in 1940s-style dresses and matching topcoats(no comments about this, I’m just speechless, how could this girl come to this conclusion). But that is precisely Madrid’s charm” (Jesus Christ!!, really??, is this MAdrid’s charm? In my opinion it is not, the city has many others)

Her comments on Chueca are ok, except for the “piles” of dog waste, but she doesn’t talk about the Reina Sofia Museum, which taking into account it holds Picasso’s Guernica, is a really strange thing.

Anyway, her selection of tapas Bars is ok, altough I would choose some others, and then we come the my favourite part of the article:

“Madrileños believe that night is the most important time of day (do we? I didn’t know it. This statetment is just ridiculous and you know it). To party like a local, head to the multistory tavern El Viajero (WRONG!!, you will find almost NO LOCALS there, most of them young men attracted by the crowds of blonde American tourists trying to party like the locals), or the Traveler (Plaza Cebada, 11; 34-91-366-9064), which draws everyone from women in their 20s in “Flashdance” off-the-shoulder sweatshirts (??????????, I’m speechless again, I wonder if this girl lives in Madrid or in Mars)to men in business suits”

I’m tired at this point, I refuse to comment on the rest of her article.

I don’t like her article, what can I say. That’s my humble opinion.

And I don’t agree with you on Madrid being overlooked by tourists. More and more are coming each year. These days, the information is there for whoever who is interested, and sorry if I sound arrogant, but maybe Madrid is not the best destination for someone who thought the capital of Spain is Barcelona. This is a city for travellers, as I said, and I think Madrid is interested in atrating educated visitors.