79. Tue 18/4/17: Taberna Tirso de Molina, Madrid

Beer: San Miguel 5%

Our local pub – two minutes from our flat. Again this is a darkly lit, dark wood (certainly darker than the ubiquitous brown in British boozers) – but not evoking Bavaria this time, rather the Nineteenth Century Paris of Toulouse Lautrec… apologise, sometimes ones CSE Grade 4 Art training just kicks in. Art Nouveau is it? Not sure how/where that succeeds or falls – but there are faint touches of grandiose, from stained glass windows to ceilings bedecked with chandeliers and mirrors.

Maybe where it does succeed is in that the décor doesn’t render the bar any more or less poncey than any other fairly decent bar on the corner of a city centre square.

A sign in the pub suggests that they’ll be screening Leicester v Atletico a little later. Not sure why we’re bothered, but we decide to pop by and have a look. When the football does start, the hostelries of Madrid are screening Real v Bayern, being played just up the road, en masse (including this place, so we don’t stay).

81. Tue 18/4/17: Restaurante Asador, Madrid

Beer: Mahou 5%

Last bar of the evening is a small standard tapas bar on the square; nothing much to say for or against it. There are some nice hanging plants over the window and bar. The gratis tapas are a very acceptable variety of green olive. The beer is served in chalices. The beer is Mahou.

I have vague recollection of Real Madrid v Bayern Munich on the telly – and our not really wanting to watch it; and our looking for the bar advertising their screening Leicester v Atletico (and our, oddly, giving a toss) and our not finding it, and going back to our flat instead. We’re tired.

80. Tue 1/4/17: La barro del teatro, Madrid

Beer: Mahou 5%

Right next door to the theatre in the square and apparently owned/staffed by Indians, which is odd but good to see.

Mind you, it is WAY too hot in here. The pub is wide and open (not airy), with a single bar pump serving Mahou.

Disappointingly the tapas are pretty standard fayre – would it be too much to suggest Indian food? I could kill a curry (upon my return to Blighty, I kill two in two days). There’s a smell of curry coming from somewhere – it smells lovely, and makes me feel homesick.

There are big queues for the theatre outside. Not sure what’s on – there are giant billboards for two shows outside (I should have photographed them). The queues die down by the time we depart.