Day 32 Madrid

It was unlike our recent habit, but we got up an hour earlier than usual at 8:30 in order to do a last spot of sightseeing. Our destination was the church of Santa Maria del Mar, not far from our hotel and the port. It didn't look like much from the outside and the interior was decidedly plain compared to the cathedrals we've seen, but it had some outstanding windows, with very good colours and high detail in some of them. There was no ornamentation or grilles in front of the shrines. We felt much more comfortable there and indeed spent well over an hour enjoying the light and the peaceful atmosphere..

We wanted to climb up the tower to enjoy the view, but the guardian ladies of the stairs advised that we would have to wait, i.e. a queue. So we waited in the beautiful, solid wooden pews and enjoyed the peace even more. To facilitate the process we had obliged the stir ladies with a voluntary contribution to the restoration fund. You may be even more amazed to learn that earlier I had unloaded some of my stash of  small denomination coins into a box at the shrine dedicated to Jesus (Armin take note). 

The towers appear to have been recently renovated and indeed there were sponsors' signs indicating that restoration was in progress. It was a tight but easy, i.e. not that high a climb and the view was worth it as it was a brilliant day - not quite perfectly clear, but good enough to enjoy the city skyline and appreciate aspects of the church's construction. The windows high in the nave looked small from ground level, but up at roof level they were more than 2 m in diameter.

We made it back to the hotel to freshen up and check out by the mandated 12 pm. We left shortly after 12, and wheeled ourselves to the statue of Cristobal Colon (Christopher Columbus) in order to catch a taxi to Plaza d'Espagna, where we were just in time to catch a crowded no. 46 airport bus. We arrived at the airport just at 1pm.

On entering the terminal building we could see that there were more people than one might have expected, part of the volcano fallout. We were disappointed but not entirely dismayed to discover that our 16:00 flight was not on the board, not at a later time. We queued up for check-in anyway and got to the counter pretty quickly. The nice lady there informed us that our flight was scheduled for ten minutes earlier and that it was indeed leaving. Oh bliss! Oh joy! The thunder god has looked kindly on us.

We are sorry to be leaving Barcelona, especially on such a fine day, because we are feeling very comfortable here, apart from the fact that we have no Spanish to speak of. It would be a fine place to live.

The flight to Madrid left on time and arrived at 5 pm. We were easily able to find our way onto the Metro, and after two changes of line that went smoothly, we arrived at our destination station - Opera, just before 18:30, feeling good. It was on exiting the station that our good feeling evaporated somewhat when we were faced with humping our luggage over no less that nine flights of stairs in order to get to the surface, enough to work up a good sweat. The station, and hotel (actually a hostal) are on Plaza de Isabel II, at the back end of the Opera The plaza on the other side of the opera, Plaza Oriente has "a royal palace, the theatre royal, a glorious alive monument to imperial Madrid with some of the finest sunset views…"  Unfortunately, our plaza, as seems to be our fate, is a construction pit.

As we went out it was sprinkling - the weather forecast had given a 20-30% chance of rain for most of the days of our stay here in Madrid. We walked down Calle Arenal toward Puerta del Sol, a large square near the centre of the city. Arenal is a lovely wide pedestrian street with lots of shops and  more importantly, restaurants, most of which did not appeal or were unaffordable.

At Sol it started to sprinkle a little more heavily, and we only had Joan's small umbrella between us. I was no sooner wishing for somewhere to buy an umbrella when we noticed sub-continent chaps at all intersections selling this very item, at €4 a pop for a pretty flimsy number. No sooner had I availed myself of this opportunity than, of course, it stopped sprinkling.

When it came to dinner, we have to admit to another backsliding episode - we ate at a kebab bar in a corner of our square. We had Plata Nemrut with lamb which was was quite good - the first square meal we had in days, in fact.
 
Our room in the Hostal Oriente is quite spacious and comfortable. It's a hostal rather than a hotel because it doesn't serve meals, so we have to go out for breakfast, but the accommodation is as good as any we've had. This is not o say it was cheaper, because it wasn't, but this is the capital after all.

As I write this at 22:45, with the window open for cooling, I can hear the heavy machinery in the construction pit on the plaza still revving up doing their work. There are still lots of people in the street. We feel good that we are right in the middle of the action of this city. We are also pleased that we were able to have such a smooth slide into town from the airport, heavy humping aside.