If you are from Madrid and love travelling, you must know that there have been relevant travellers from town (or, at least, from the Madrid region) during history.

The pioneer was Ruy González de Clavijo, who at the beginning of the XV Century travelled to Central Asia as Enrique III´s ambassador in view of the bloodthirsty emperor Tamerlan. Between the XVI and the XVII centuries, Pedro Paez, born in Olmeda de las Fuentes (Madrid region), travelled around Asia and Africa before establishing in Ethiopia, where he did a great job and wrote a history of the country. In more recent times, there have been great travelllers such as the travel writer Javier Reverte or the polar explorer Ramon Larramendi.