Gliding through Madrid on Segways

Boys on Segways.

We spent four-and-a-half hours on Segways gliding around Madrid this morning. We had an absolute ball.

Madseg tours is run by a Scottish South African who is passionate about Segways. Tony has won the Segway world championships twice and seems to know everything there is to know about the subject. He’s also patient and has an infectious enthusiasm for both Segways and Madrid.

The best part of the tour was the Segways themselves. We all had a great time zooming about and became really proficient over the course of the morning. I had a blast because Tony rated us as sort of experienced because we’d been on Segways before. There was an extra person on the tour which meant Tony used his emergency backup Segway and I got to use Tony’s own, world championship tooled, Segway at full power. It whizzed along and turned like a ballerina on speed. Under Tony’s tutelage we were all soon going down steps, up slopes and through sand like pros.

On tour.

Apart from the fun of the vehicles themselves, using the Segways allowed us to cover a lot of ground. I can’t claim we learnt a vast amount about Madrid but we got to see it from several novel angles which would have been beyond practical walking distance. Honestly though seeing Madrid was a bonus, playing with the Segways was the main game.

In the afternoon we visited the Thysen Bomemisza Museum. This museum grew from a recent private collection and has two major advantages. The first is that there is a series of great works and the second is that they are presented in chronological order. A walk through the Museum is like a mini art history class and kept us all engaged. Would have been even better on Segways of course.

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