MADRID & MARIO

Hello lovely blog readers, sorry we have been a bit quiet this week but we were lucky enough to spend some time in Madrid lapping up the sights and sounds and attending the fabulous Mario Testino exhibition. For a very reasonable €5 we were able to browse up to 50 of his fabulous portraits taken over the years including some stunning shots of Kate Moss and Natalia Vodianova.

After musing on the many pictures we decided our favourite was the infamous Sienna Miller portrait that featured in the September Issue film back in 2007 .We didn’t like the photos of iconic 90s ‘supers’ reshot today including Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford and Christy Turlington – sure they had all aged gracefully but it just didn’t float our boat. We popped to the museum shop après the exhibition and found a gorgeous coffee table book, available with the loveliest hard back cover in a choice of lemon, pistachio or soft peach which led to the girls arguing over who got which colour.

After the exhibition we managed to fit in lots of sight seeing and lots more eating – the tapas is amazing with brilliant chain restaurant Lateral being the absolute go-to place for great tasting food and atmosphere but on a more budget-friendly level. We also stopped by at one too many of Madrid’s traditional coffee shops to fill up on a local speciality – hot chocolate and churros. It consists of a cup of thick hot chocolate (think a melted bar of dairy milk in texture but tasting a million times better) with crispy savoury snacks that look like they are made from doughnut minus the jam to dip in the drink. Healthy – we doubt it. Tasty – oh yes!