The Rain in Spain
Monday, September 30
From Barcelona to Madrid
Monday morning saw us getting up, packing again, and being driven to another terminal. This time we didn’t go to an airport to get out of Barcelona, though. We were driven to the Barcelona train station, Sants, to take a high-speed train from Barcelona to Madrid. What a great ride! 186 miles an hour on the straghtaway. As Judy has said to the girls since 1985, “Notice the vast change in the vegetation.” 
In this case, not only the vegetation but also the terrain and the cloud cover, the first drippy day we'd had on the trip. Maybe it was the constant gray sky that lulled Tori and KC; or perhaps it was the night before. Who knows what they were up to after the seniors went to bed.
Our arrival in Atocha, the main train station in Madrid, was really surprising. It’s a huge multi-level structure that compares in its extent to many airports I’ve flown into. The driver who met us was a great tour guide, pointing out all the important sites we passed on the trip to the Hotel Regina. He even made sure we knew how to pronounce the name of the hotel correctly! Now that we were really in the great central plain of Spain, it was a bit funny to discover wet streets. He also assured us the rain had stopped, though, just in time for our arrival, so we didn’t have to worry.
The Hotel Regina was without doubt the “nicest” hotel we stayed in during our trip. Jan was very smooth in the way we moved from a B&B, through smaller hotels, into a modernized, full-service hotel in the tourist center of Madrid. The first thing we did after we moved into our rooms, with no balconies for the smokers this time, we struck out on foot for a look around the city. Heading out of the hotel and going to our right, we walked through the Puerta del Sol to the Plaza Mayor. Lunch was good, even with the threat of continuing drizzle, and we spent a little time thinking about what to do next.
After lunch we once again looked for the hop-on-hop-off bus Jan had reserved for us and boarded the green route bus, receiving new red ear-buds for the trip. Unfortunately, this one route had two draw-backs: the cover had been pulled forward over the top deck, just to guard against the drizzle, and we ended up spending far too much time in the newer commercial section north of the city than we wanted to. Once we had a chance, we switched to the blue bus, because that one followed the other route. That route went west of our hotel, taking us to many more of the sights of Madrid that interested us. I’m not sure what the rest of the family did, but I made mental notes of the places I wanted to return to the next day. I don’t have Jan’s experience or knowledge, but I can occasionally think ahead a day or two. Here's a quick look at some of the places that grabbed my attention.
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| Cathedral | Alcala Gate | Palace | Temple of Debod | Isabella and Gandalf!? |
After a bit of rest and relaxation back in the hotel, KC, Mark and I took off in search of a grocery or market, not the easiest thing to find in the center of Madrid. We did manage to buy what we needed, including a six-pack of water bottles for the next few days, some diet Coke, and perhaps a bottle of wine or two. While we were out, it was inevitable that we make note of restaurants, so at the appropriate time we all struck out for dinner at La Catedral, an atmospheric place just a half-block off Puerta del Sol. Fabulous company for dinner, great service, and food that wasn't bad at all. :-)