Just returned from the happiest 2 weeks of my life! My best friend lives in Madrid and booked a wonderful holiday visit for my birthday this year.

I won't bore you with too many details, but I did try to remember to take outfit photos. Also I really took note of the fashion trends in Western and central Spain, both the big city and small towns. (We visited several smaller areas, as well as Madrid.)

Of course the temps are still high there, between 25 and 32 Celsius most days, so summer fashions were still common. We did have one freakishly cold windy day - - only 11 degrees! But luckily just the one.

I was surprised to see platform sandals of some kind, on most women between 16 and 60. And sneakers were everywhere, but generally not on women over 50. The vast majority of women wore some kind of dress, both casual and more dressy. Not a lot of pants, with the exception of jeans on younger women, but less than I see here in Toronto.

Thank goodness for the advice I got from many of you about how to pack linen. I brought and wore a lot of it, and it travelled beautifully, rolled. I really didn't need to iron. I brought several pairs of sandals, but ended up wearing either flip flops, or sandals, both from Fitflop and truly comfortable.

I struggle with proportions sometimes, so would be happy for any advice you'd can offer.

Thanks for looking!