Petanque in Madrid

I just came back from Madrid, Spain visiting Family and the Old Neighborhood and of course sharpening my skills at my favorite Game "Petanque".

At first I was a little disappointed because the Petanque Courts were empty, some older Players that were walking by told me that they stop playing until September since most of them were leaving for the Summer. This is the Picture of the Courts in Ciudad Pegaso 10 minutes away from Barajas Airport where I used to Play.

The solution was to move up to the next Community "Canillejas" a 30 minute minute walk from my In Laws House, now this is a very active Club with 180 Members and a wonderful Clubhouse with 13 Courts with lights and Bathrooms located inside a Park.

The Fun started, they took me in and I made lots of Friends right

away, we would Play in the

afternoon around 5:00PM until 10:00PM every day, that's right! in the Summer it gets dark at 10:15PM

One thing for sure, in these two communities petanque is not what it used to be, you don't see kids playing Petanque any more and right over the fence you could see over 30 of them lined up playing soccer.

Here to the Picture on the right are some of there best players, from right to left Oscar, Pedro and Jose the Taxi Driver, Oscar is the only one that would travel to play in Tournaments. These guys are A1 Pointers and excellent shooters they would make fun of me and say that "here in Spain we hit on the Iron" but a hit is a hit in my book.

I was taking a look at their Bulletin Board about an Open Tournament in two weeks in Zaragoza. http://www.fepetanca.com/abierto2007/ABIERTO2007.htm
The top Prize for First Place is 2000 euros about $2600 and all the way to 16th place 75 Euros but they will have at least over 64 teams.

The Best Petanque Players in Spain are in Barcelona, the South, SE Coast and the Islands, Balearic and Canary Islands.