A couple of days before Lee-Anne and I went to Madrid, I had a look on Trip Advisor to see what there was to do, and I noticed that the #7 Best Thing To Do in Madrid was something called GoCar.

Intrigued, I mentioned it to Lee-Anne, who said, "THAT LOOKS AMAZING! LET'S DO IT!" so we booked it.

It is essentially a teeny tiny yellow convertible, with a sat nav that shouts directions and fascinating facts about the places you're driving past, whilst you drive around Madrid. You can stop and park it anywhere and get out and look around. How cool is that?!

On Saturday morning, dear reader, we did it. Only... Go-Car is not really a car. It is a glorified motorcycle. It only has three wheels, no gears and no pedals. We had to wear helmets but trust me, we would have worn them even if they'd been optional!

The entire journey was both terrifying and hysterically funny in equal measures. The first ten minutes was mainly terrifying. Particularly driving up the really quite steep ramp out of the parking garage, and doing a U-turn into traffic driving on the wrong side of the road (for me), and being blinded by the sun because I'd forgotten to put my sunglasses on.

We stopped fairly early so that I could smoke a cigarette to calm down. Just before we set off again, L-A took a picture of me in the car:



We took a few wrong turnings but the car sorted us out, telling us where to go to get back on the tour. It had two different voices (we called them Judy and Juanita as one was English and one Spanish). Juanita saved us when we were lost, Judy told us about what we were going past. We spoke to Juanita a lot at first...

After we'd been going for a little while, Lee-Anne asked me how I was feeling and then snapped a picture of the face I pulled:



As time went by, I got more confident and we started noticing people staring at us. The car was very, VERY loud and drew a lot of attention from passers by. This amused us greatly. Both smiling locals and amused tourists waved and stopped to stare. A few people gawped at us with undisguised horror which made us laugh our heads off. It was gut-wrenchingly funny. I challenged Lee-Anne to take photos of as many people staring as possible and I have combined them into this lovely collage (you can click on it to see it full-size - well worth it!)



It could only have been funnier if we'd been in a whole fleet of them, which apparently does happen sometimes on stag nights and the like. That must be completely bloody brilliant.

We did have various mishaps:

1. I nearly crashed into a parked car when trying to get out of a parking space (the car has no reverse, so Lee-Anne had to leap out and push if we wanted to go backwards) and I missed the other car by about a centimetre! The owner was standing right there so it was bloody lucky that I did!

2. I drove the wrong way up a one-way street. Locals waived their arms and shouted "No, no!" so we quickly realised, and luckily there was nothing coming. Lee-Anne leapt out and started pushing, and meanwhile a passerby whipped out his mobile phone and started videoing the spectacle whilst sniggering. I was red as a beetroot, Lee-Anne was laughing her head off, but thankfully we got out of there unscathed.

3. I had to make a quick decision whether to turn left or right, couldn't remember which side of the road I was meant to be on so just went straight ahead and ended up wedged up against the side of the kerb. Lee-Anne had to get out and push again. Oops!

Here is a hilarious video which demonstrates exactly what it was like inside the car:



And here is a hilarious picture Lee-Anne took of us while we were driving along, which pretty much sums it up:



I've got lots of other photos Lee-Anne took of random landmarks as we were driving...



... but to be honest I can't remember what a lot of them are of. It really wasn't that important. It was an experience neither of us will ever forget. They also have them in other cities (San Francisco, Barcelona and some others) so if you get the chance, give it a whirl. The staff at the shop spoke great English and were really helpful too.

I did need a stiff drink afterwards though ;)