Annual Winter Holiday 2009

At Charonite we take pride in doing our best to keep the whole team happy and productive, by providing an incentives-based environment for growth and personal development, while showing appreciation towards our work colleagues. One of the ways that we encourage team spirit is to take everyone on a short break during December (with a similar short break in August, when the weather in Malta is always guaranteed to be sunny). Our winter holiday tradition now goes back to 2007, when we went to Pisa and Florence, and to Venice in 2008.

This year we decided to go to the vibrant capital city of Spain, Madrid. Madrid was literally packed full of people and you can say that we saw the "mad" in Madrid first-hand! Madrid has a lot of nice open air markets, a rich architectural heritage and various shops.

Hamon Iberico display in Madrid

A nice tradition in Madrid is to gather around at open air food markets to eat tapas, a practice that evoked our memories of Asia. The tapas were delicious, albeit a bit difficult to get hold of at times - balancing a glass of wine, a plate of oysters, some bread and cheese and whatever else is on offer from the stalls while gently elbowing your way to a coveted seating place is an art of its own.

The first place we visited was the Museo Reina Sofia, which houses various important works of art by Spanish artists including Dali, Picasso, Gris, Miro, Gonzelez, Gargallo and others. The auestere, black and white "Guernica" painting by Pablo Picasso is one of the main highlights of this museum, commanding almost a whole room on its own - a reminder of the tragedies that war can inflict on people.

Flamenco at Cardamomo

One of the highlights was a Flamenco show at Cardamomo, a cosy Flamenco bar that was packed full of people watching the beautiful display of guitar music (toque), dancing (baile) and singing (cante). The show proceeded in different stages with male and female dancers taking turns and finally coming together in a nicely orchestrated show. We definitely recommend watching a Flamenco show whenever in Spain to savour the culture and traditions of the country.

The World's Oldest Restaurant - Restuarante Sobrino de Botin

Another highlight of our visit was an evening out at the Restaurante Botin, the world's oldest restaurant according to the Guiness Book of Records, founded in 1725 (which also claims to have had the painter Goya working as a dishwasher there!). We ordered a delicious suckling pig, cooked in the traditional Castilian way for the whole party, all washed down with caraffes of Sangria. Of course, vegetarians in our group also had plenty of food choices but Madrid does seem to be a mini-paradise for meat-lovers (especially with the numerous "Museo del Jamon" shops everywhere).

No trip to Madrid could be considered complete without a visit to the Museo Nacional del Prado, which hosts one of the worls largest collection of fine art, including El Greco, Goya, Velazquez, Bosch, Titian, Rubens, Raphael, Botticelli, Caravaggio, Durer, Rembrandt and many others. The long queue to get inside the museum was definitely worthwhile and it was interesting to see how people on our team interpreted the art in different manners.

In all, it was an enjoyable trip to Madrid, and we'd like to take this opportunity to wish you all a happy new year!

p.s. Interested in joining our team? Drop us an email on careers@charonite.com. See you next year!