Spanish rip-offs

Our inestimable friend Marta suggested that we collectively work through a recently published list of the most beautiful cafes in the World. One of the said cafes happens to be in downtown Madrid so Jennifer and I had an opportunity to try out our beautiful-cafe judging.

The Grand Cafe Gijon has been serving up coffee since 1888 and has dished the goods to a variety of Spanish luminaries. These days, however, it seems to be trading heavily on history and can best be described as faded, rather than beautiful. That in itself would be fine, but the coffee was average and the prices were well above-average. It was good to do in the interests of our collaborative list-work; but I won’t be recommending that anyone else run out and visit.

On the other hand, the National Archaeological Museum is absolutely worth a visit, being nicely stuffed full of things Spain has collected and placed in a big building. Nicely, the museum recognises they’ve ripped off a bunch of stuff and has quite a display about where it all comes from. It is a great range of things from pre-history, through Phoenician and Roman times, on to the Visigoths and Mujedars, and up to a bunch of stuff collected by more recent monarchs – oh, and a leavening of Egyptian things both ‘found’ and donated by the Egytains in exchange for Aswan Dam help. One of our favourite items was Napiers Bones – a 17th-century calculator (that was bought).