Colors of Madrid
You don't just look at Madrid.
You drink it.
Like a perfectly chilled Aperol Spritz, served a little too early in the afternoon, too orange, too fizzy, a little too generous. Its colours arrive without warning and refuse to be toned down.
There is the red of vermouth signs, the neon green clinging to Haussmann-style façades at night, the yellow of taxis gliding beneath the September sun. There is the pink of Chueca's rainbow flags, the dazzling white of mannequins in shop windows, the golden brown of olives at the Mercado de San Miguel, gleaming under harsh light.
And above all, there is that light.
Light that never asks permission. It falls straight onto rooftops, terraces, tattooed shoulders, glasses of white wine perched on the edge of a rooftop bar. It turns even ordinary buildings into film sets. As dusk falls, the city becomes one vast picture window open to the sky: orange, pink, purple, then almost electric blue.
Madrid is as varied as a platter of tapas.
A bit of everything, with no hierarchy. Historic architecture and contemporary installations, a metro that smells of tarmac and markets that smell of garlic, streets where people kiss and streets where people argue loudly. It doesn't try to be elegant. It is alive. It glows.
Tomorrow, more photographs will be added to this travel journal.
But already, you understand: here, the sun never really sets.
It simply changes colour.
