[ Jan.2018 ] On the first night in Madrid in Spain, we booked and went to see the flamenco show.

Flamenco is the art from south Spain such as Andalucia, but I remembered that I saw a performance in Madrid, too long ago, so we searched and found this place called Casa Patas.

The place is a venue not only for the flamenco show but also a restaurant and it is listed in my old guide book, so probably it is a well established place.

When we entered we found a big restaurant first with rows of photos of flamenco artists.

There was a window at the end of the room and we bought the tickets there.

A ticket cost €38 (£34, $47) with one drink.

And we went into a dark room beyond the restaurant where they performed.

There was a stage and there were so many tables and chairs around the stage.

Apparently as many as 140 people can be seated here.

In the weekdays the performance starts at 10:30 pm, but on Fridays and Saturdays, they have the 8:00 pm performances, too.

According to their website which has got the English and Japanese translations, they choose artists according to their strict standard and they change them every week.

The group we saw was made up of one guitarist, one drummer, three singers, one male dancer who was quite good looking and one female dancer who seemed the boss of this company.

The flamenco we saw in Jeres de la Frontera a while ago was mainly the dance of legs, but this time they moved the upper body quite a lot, too.

The female dancer had a dignified presence.

Although the flamenco dance is a hard work, it does not seem to make people slim.

In the second part after a break, we were surprised to see that 4 young girls who were about 10 years old came out on the stage and danced.

They looked so young, but they danced like adults with the frowned faces.

Probably they are the students of the female leader of this group.

For me, the flamenco music sounds like they raise their voices carefree as they feel like it at that moment, but my husband said “There was a song we heard before, wasn’t there”, which made me surprised.

In fact, many audience sang along and sometimes shouted ‘Ole!‘, so probably some famous numbers were played.

The show lasted about one and a half hours and we enjoyed it thoroughly.

According to the website of Casa Patas, it started as a meeting place of flamenco artists and non-profit organisation called Flamenco Conservatory Foundation where people learn many aspects of flamenco including history is located upstairs.

After this enjoyable time, we got a little bit hungry, so we went to a tapas place which the hotel people recommended.

It was a restaurant called Jamon 55 and it was not exactly a tapas bar, but more like a ham restaurant.

They seemed to have a farm and make hams themselves, according to the photographs on the wall.

The view of the rows of ham on the wall was impressive.

The ham in Spain tastes so good, doesn’t it.