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Tags: Crime / Madrid Travel / Madrid / Fashion Travel / Celeb Travel / → All Tags

A Sad Day For The Jet Set As Diane Von Furstenberg Is Robbed In Madrid

Irony! Just when we vouched for the safety of travelers in Madrid last week with our "Bad Rap Cities: Madrid" story, a high-profile woman fell victim over the weekend to the city's thieves who prey on tourists.

It all went down on yesterday evening in front of the Thyssen Museum in Madrid, when beloved fashion designer, contemporary of Andy Warhol, and legend in her own right Diane von Furstenberg twittered:

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Tags: Five-Bad-Rap-Cities / Bad Rap Cities / Madrid Travel / Urban Travel / → All Tags

Five Cities With a Bad Rap: Madrid Is 'Muy Bien, Gracias'

Some locales can’t seem to shake their less-than-sparkling reputations despite efforts to lock away the skeletons of yesterday. We’ve decided to highlight five of these Bad Rap Cities that are making moves to shed their grimy and gritty images in hopes of becoming more tourist-friendly. Maybe, just maybe, after reading this series you'll be willing to take a chance on them. Enjoy.

Bad Rap City: Madrid

Why Go?
Just like Barcelona, Madrid has a rep for being a Thieves Paradise. Many post-trip reviews are peppered with tales of pickpockets roaming the streets in droves, armed with purse-cutting knives. Add to that the declarations that local men are lecherous louts, and female travelers become skittish about visiting alone. But forget the fear mongerers rantings and head to this beautiful city that is chock full of impressive art, delectable cuisine and is a nightowl’s dream.

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Tags: Summer Festivals / Music Festivals / Events / Spain Travel / → All Tags

Madrid Takes Its Culture To The Streets This Summer

If you find yourself wandering the streets of Madrid this summer, stumbling upon some culture should be even easier than usual.

June 25 marked the start of the city’s 24th annual Veranos de la Villa—Summer in the City—60 days of music, dance, and theatre held throughout the city’s squares and plazas (and in some inside theaters and concert halls too).

The festival is a time when Madrid comes out to celebrate its international flair, so expect less Spanish guitar and flamenco dancing in favor of more pop music and breakdancing. The eclectic lineup includes everyone from Cuban hip-hoppers Orishas to ballet impresario Mikhail Baryshnikov, and funk legends Kool in the Gang, along with a slew of free events throughout the festival, which runs through August 23.

Related Stories:
· Verano de la Villa [Official Site]
· Madrid summer festival features star-studded lineup [Travel Weekly]
· US Airways Begs You To Go To Europe This Summer [Jaunted]

[Photo: museu reina sofia]

Tags: Travel Deals / US Airways / → All Tags

US Airways Begs You To Go To Europe This Summer

US Airways knows what you did last summer: Sat around bemoaning the soaring euro and toiled with the idea of going to Toronto just to be able to say you left the country. (No offense, Canada.) 2009, you vowed, would be different.

After enticing us with fare sales to the UK, Sully's favorite airline has widened the net to include other destinations like Dublin and Madrid. Eat your frites in Brussels or, and this has us intrigued, get 5,000 miles with your trip from Philly to Oslo. Now if you'll excuse us, we've got some currency to change.

Related Stories:
· Five Airfare Sales To Get You Out of the Staycation Doldrums [Jaunted]
· US Airways Sale to UK: It Rules [Jaunted]
· Travel Deals coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: travelstar]

Tags: Celeb Travel / Museums / Reese Witherspoon / Jake Gyllenhaal / → All Tags

Everyone Goes To The Prado

Reese Witherspoon and Jake Gyllenhaal check out Madrid's Museo Nacional del Prado, a major tourist draw that locals actually visit sometimes. Reese and Jake, in town for her promotional tour for "Monsters versus Aliens," weren't even the highest profile visitors this week: German president Horst Kohler got his own private tour from Crown Prince Felipe yesterday.

Can't make it to Madrid to check out the best of national masters like Goya? You can now visit the museum on Google Earth, and even zoom in on selected works up to fantastic detail. Still, we have to insist that there's nothing like the real thing.

Related Stories:
· German President visits Madrid [Earthtimes.org]
· Fall Culture Travel: We <3 Goya [Jaunted]
· Prado Museum to be featured on Google Earth [Examiner]
· Celeb Travel coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: JustJared]

Tags: Photography / Street Art / Cameras / Memory Cards / → All Tags

Share The View (and Your Memory Card) with Photochaining

Losing a memory card at the end of the trip can be tragic. But what if you plan to leave it behind on purpose? The Photochaining project encourages photographers to willingly leave behind cheap cards for others to find and add to. It's like Where's George, but for pictures!

Currently there are 16 memory cards out there, some with people names (Ben, Lola) and others with themes (Gimme, Love, Landscape). Most of them have only been found once in places from Madrid (where a card with the above photo was from) to San Francisco. As much as we like to hang onto our cards, this could work as long as people remember to let their findings go. Yours could be next!

Related Stories:
· Leaving Camera Memory Cards in Public Places! [Photochaining.com]
· O'Hare Airport Stars in Chicago Photography Exhibition [Jaunted]
· TravelMuse Wants Your Vacation Snaps [Jaunted]

[Photo: "Anna" memory card]

Tags: Airport WiFi / Airport-WiFi-Map / MAD / → All Tags

Get To Know Madrid-Barajas A Little Better

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero accidentally became an international YouTube star this week when he cursed out a fellow world leader at a press conference. Surely he didn't say that Russia's Dmitri Medvedev and him needed to make their countries very intimate together, right?

Zapatero will be in a tight spot until the country can get over his gaffe, but travelers through Madrid-Barajas International Airport have no need to worry about getting caught out: The terminal wireless furnished by Kubi is so organized, the company even lists all the hot spots so you can find out before you go what restaurant or lounge to park yourself in.

Kubi is the leading provider of wireless Internet in Spain, and if this fanatical organization characterizes all their ventures, we will soon be getting very intimate with their services. (Uh, not like that.)

We promise not to put it on YouTube if you send us a tip on some international WiFi.

Related Stories:
· Medvedev Zapatero news conference [YouTube]
· Find a Hotspot - Madrid-Barajas [KubiWireless.com]
· Airport WiFi Map [Jaunted]

Tags: Fall Culture Travel / Active Travel / Yoga / → All Tags

Fall Culture Travel: Bend It Like Gandhi

Never doubt that a small group of committed, exceedingly flexible individuals can change the world: Sunday's Yoga for Peace will unite nine countries in sun salutations dedicated to global harmony.

Organized by Global Mala, a nonprofit dedicated to "uniting the global yoga community," the stretchy among us will be taking over public parks from Pocatello, Idaho to Zagreb, Croatia.

Even if the solstice-oriented event doesn't achieve world peace in our time, you could do worse than getting a little fresh air, say in Madrid's famous Parque del Retiro, and working out those computer-related kinks.

Related Stories:
· Participating Cities [Yoga for Peace Official Site]
· Standard Miami's Friday Night Yoga Nights [HC]
· Back of the Envelope Guide: Woodstock Film Festival [Jaunted]

[Photo: banno]

Tags: White Night Travel / Culture / Museums / Spain Travel / → All Tags

White Night Travel: Madrid's La Noche en Blanco on Saturday

The place to be this Saturday, September 13 is most definitely Madrid, as White Night fever hits the city. La Noche en Blanco 2008 sounds pretty enchanting:

With the full moon watching over them, Madrid residents and visitors will discover a new city, one made with illusions and dreams.

Traditionally, White Nights take place around the summer solstice in cities close to the Arctic Circle where the sky never gets dark for several days straight. To embody that spirit in Madrid, throughout the night, museums will be open, concerts will be on and all public transport will be free. With events running right through until 6 am, you'd better book Sunday as a day to sleep off that cultural overload.

Related Stories:
· La Noche en Blanco 2008 [Official Site]
· Sleepless White Nights Hit Europe [Jaunted]
· Madrid Travel Guide [Jaunted]

[Photo: Clara en su mundo]

Tags: MAD / Disaster Travel / Spanair / → All Tags

Dangerous Travel: Spanair Crash Kills at Least 45 in Madrid

A Spanair MD-82 bound for the Canary Islands skidded off a runway and caught fire at Madrid's Barajas Airport, leading to reports that only 25 of the 173 people on board survived.

Flight 5022 (also listed as Lufthansa 255) reportedly suffered an engine fire around 5 pm local time while attempting an emergency landing on Runway 6, immediately after takeoff. Despite the efforts of 11 emergency vehicles, on the scene reports are putting the death toll at around 150--though only 45 fatalities have been confirmed as of now.

It's the worst fatal airplane crash in Spain since a 1985 incident in Bilbao. Prime minister Jose Luis Zapatero has been called to the scene from his vacation in Doñana National Park in Andalusia.

Related Stories:
· At Least 45 Dead in Madrid Plane Crash [AP]
· Dozens of Dead Following Crash upon Takeoff at Barajas [El Pais, in Spanish]

[Photo of a Spanair MD-82: thomasbecker]

Tags: Museums / Art / Pablo Picasso / Culture Travel / → All Tags

Hurting Culture Travel: "Guernica" Needs a Facelift

To stand before Picasso's magnificent "Guernica" canvas is to be bowled over by the artist's depiction of the horrors of war. But curators at the Reina Sofia Museum, where the painting has made his home since 1992, say the major work needs some major work done--and might even be too fragile for restoration.

A particular problem according to experts is that the painting is too fragile to move, even to its namesake city, while it used to join exhibitions as far away as Chicago and Brazil. It was defaced in 1974 by an antiwar protester who added the words "Kill Lies All" to the painting, though that has since been removed.

Despite damage sustained, the painting is protected not by alarmed glass but just by a rail and guards. You're not supposed to take pictures, though--hence this stealth shot.

Related Stories:
· "Guernica" Needs Special Care, Say Curators [AP]
· Madrid Travel coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: oppenodom]

Tags: Fall-Culture-Travel-Map / Museums / Art / Europe Travel / → All Tags

Fall Culture Travel: We <3 Goya

Our Fall Culture Travel Map can get you to the good museums.

And here we thought Goya just made delicious black beans and pastel colored sodas that taste like cartoons. Apparently Goya also makes masterworks of 19th century Neo-classicist portraiture, hung not in the aisles of your local bodega but in the newly renovated halls of Madrid's Prado Museum.

This Fall the Prado is pulling the classics out of storage to fill their new wing with little-seen examples of 19th Century Spanish art. Hidden from the public eye, these paintings and sculptures have been the subject of many years of research and restoration and will also be featured in an exhaustive catalog of the Prado's collection. Titled A Collection Rediscovered, this exhibition takes the viewer through the years that separate Francisco de Goya from Pablo Picasso.

The exhibition runs until April 24 with a concert on November 16 and a screening on the 17 that both explore themes of 19th Century Spanish art. Admission is relatively cheap (about $9) but bring whatever special ID (student, teacher, AARP?) you have lying around to drop the price through the Prado's liberal discount admissions policy.

Related Links:
· The 19th Century in the Prado [Official Site]
· Fall Culture Travel coverage [Jaunted]
· Fall Culture Travel Map [Jaunted]

[Photo: Lanpernas 2.1]