The stereotypical picture of Romantic Spain, with its bullfighters and flamenco, cigar-girls and bandidos, was largely the work of a small group of nineteenth-century travellers and writers including Richard Ford, Theophile Gautier, and Prosper Mérimée (the creator of Carmen). The most eccentric of them was George Borrow, who spent years in Spain as an agent for the Bible Society, a job which left him plenty of free time and gave him the excuse to visit places ordinary travellers would not venture. It is almost impossible to dislike Borrow, who is occasionally irritating in his prejudices, but is almost always good-humoured, a talented linguist (though his Spanish vocabulary is often no better than an approximation) and an eager conversationalist, with a natural sympathy for those on the edges of society (and a distaste for those in power). And sometimes he could be so insightful that although his Spanish experiences were nearly two hundred years ago, his accounts are almost as true today. Here he is cheerfully going on about Madrid, and anyone who has caught the Madrid bug will recognise his conclusion: that what is fascinating about the place is not the city itself, but its people.

The Museo Romántico, closed for renovation for the last nine years, will open to the public again on December 3rd. I remember it as one of the most charming of Madrid's lesser museums, though its new name - Museo Nacional del Romanticismo - is truly horrible.