I’ve often been asked as a Brit living in Spain what it is I miss most about life in the UK and Sunday lunch down the pub is my normal answer. I’ve also been asked what I’d miss most about Spain and I have always answered: the Sunday lunchtime “Aperitivo”. I guess I like Sunday lunchtime.

The “Aperitivo” is a sort of rolling pub crawl where you get together with friends and have a few beers, tapas and so on. Depending on where you are it may just be a pavement café or two and the odd beer. But if you go into town, especially the area of Embajadores and Lavapiés, there may just be a little live music involved. Mrs Maki and I often head into town to visit the Rastro street market and then do a little shopping in the Asian grocers in the Lavapiés area. It’s our way of saying “This is Sunday and we’re not in a rush.” We nearly always end up listening to some good live music – either in the street or in one of the many bars we are lucky to be able to choose from. We’ve been meaning to share our love of Madrid Sunday Lunchtimes with you for ages.

Well, today was no better or worse than any other but I managed to get a little video of the sort of thing we enjoy. Some lunchtime blues from Alex Capodoccio and his band in the Taberna Alabanda in Lavapiés. (Facebook page here). apologies for the dodgy, shaky video but I was holding a beer in the other hand and probably bopping out of time to the music as well.

We have plenty more in the pipeline – street musicians, bars with free live music at lunchtimes and such. A little bit of our Madrid for our friends on the ‘Spill.