Xanadu Madrid, in spain, which boasts 23km of man-made ski slopes, says all attendance records were broken in the recent heat wave.

During August, when the outside temperature was frequently topping 40 degrees, Madrid Xanadu was welcoming around 1,600 visitors a day into an environment with a temperature hovering around minus 2 degrees.

Many people, some travelling from as far away as Barcelona (600km to the north east), turned up in shorts in their rush to get on to the cool slopes.

“You can of course hire all the necessary ski clothing, but these are not sufficient to protect yourself from the cold if you don’t have the right undergarments,” said Jorge Big, head of the Madrid Xanadu skiing school. “We had an unprecedented rush to the Xanadu shopping centre for sweaters,” he added.

“Our Mexican visitors said it was the first time in their lives that they had seen snow and we had many visitors who said they had come to Madrid solely to see snow in the Spanish capital in August,” said Big.

Madrid businesses organised snow slope lunches and at the weekends the numbers of visitors grew to such an extent that the snow park had to employ more ski supervisors to cover the extended opening hours – until 2 am.

The slopes are created in a mock Alpine environment and are covered with 50cm of artificial snow, projected by 14 cannons.

Madrid Xanadu, situated in the Arroyomolinos area, covers a total of 95 hectares, housing more than 200 shops and about 30 restaurants. The centre, owned by the American group, The Mills Corporation, cost 440m euros to build and has 150,000 visitors on average every weekend. Details: www.millsmadridxanadu.com