Train to Madrid
Thursday, August 25, 2005
We got up fairly early this morning, to head off to the train station with the hope of being able to make a reservation on the 9.30am train to Madrid. I wasn’t that hopeful, as the Lonely Planet says that you should book trains in Spain a full day in advance. Well, we turned up at the station and were pleasantly surprised (although Maarty had no doubts in the first place) that we were able to book the 9.30. We had a little bit of time, and managed to have breakfast at McDonald’s, and bought water and food ready for the trip, as we weren’t sure if the train would be any better than the one from Portbou to Barcelona. I also tried in vsin to find a toilet, as 6 hours without would be awful! But what a transition! We went from the worst train of the trip, to the nicest of the train trip today. It was amazing! We had grumbled to ourselves a little about paying the €6 reservation fee, as in the rest of Europe it is supposed to be €3, but went down the escalator and discovered a really nice looking train, and even massive security… X-ray machines etc. There was nice looking toilets, cushy seats, TV’s and even a restaurant / bar with reasonably priced food! It was a very smooth ride, and the 6 hours flew by… literally – as we were going 200kms per hour!
We arrived in Madrid station, and found that most fascinating train station that we have been to yet. It was massive – and included a huge atrium complete with jungle style garden area – all inside of course. We quickly managed to find some accommodation through the tourist office and were given directions on how to take the metro there. It seems to us that Spain has either recently upgraded all it’s train services, or they at least keep them in immaculate condition! Needless to say, it was not difficult to find where to go, and less than half an hour later we were laying on our bed in the hotel room, half naked with the fan on. It’s really hot here! The sign said 35 Degrees. There was no hurry to get out into Madrid as we had got to our room conveniently just on siesta. So we just hung out for a couple of hours looking at the map and organising just what the next 48 hours had in stall for us. Getting onto 4pm we headed out into the still mid 30 degree heat to have a look around and hopefully find internet and some good food. We found a kebab shop just down from the hotel - not to sure how kebab fits into good food but we had one anyway. Leaving the kebab shop we started off in no particular direction. We had only crossed one street before finding a very professional looking internet shop - was a little strange though, they had full security as most shops do in Spain but this even had an X-ray machine. Getting our internet fix we decided to walk further a field around Madrid, it has such amazing buildings, there seems to be an ‘old fashioned’ quality to the way they do things here - very grand. We saw a lot of very nice buildings went to parks with live piano music in the background - courtesy of the many cafés, and lots and lots of fountains – we both love Europe for it’s fountains. We finished our walk for the day around 10pm coming back to the hotel in need of a well earned rest – well have to save the dancing and pubs for tomorrow…
posted by Maarty @ 12:00 pm,
1 Comments:
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At Friday, 02 September, 2005,
said...
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Hi Guys!
Still look as tho you are having a blast! Photos are awesome keep them coming. Will email you on the weekend.
Luv Tabz