Madrid - Golf and Cruiser motorbikes

I left Madrid to work abroad a few years ago. I visit the city often, that is more than four times every year.

I find that Madrid is changing rapidly. For instance, foreign immigrants used to be rarely seen in my teenage years apart from the pioneering Chinese; now Sudamericanos, Romanians and Polish seem to be everywhere. That is particularly noticeable in the public transport, where, in many cases, immigrants clearly outnumber native-looking people.

The Metro (Madrid underground) is extended and now it is probably the cheapest and best that I never seen anywhere, and that includes a few American and European countries.

Last Christmas I found myself rubbing my eyes in disbelief. A friend of mine walked me through the park formerly known as Parque de Santander, in Chamberí, now merged with the former plot owned by Canal de Isabel II.

A populist local head of the local government has now turned it into a… golf training course in the middle of the city center!

Why having a golf training facility occupying the best part of a park in one of the areas most deprived of green areas is a mystery to me. Golf is the ultimate aspirational activity of the middle cases. I hope that the folly gives way to a more sensitive use of a park in a great location.

I wasn’t prepared for another surprise, during the same walk, in the barrio of Chamberí. In the popular Plaza de Olavides a group of motorcyclists had parked in a careful formation their Cruiser motorbikes.

Golf and cruiser motorbikes? This ain’t the Madrid I left, no Sir.