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Published: December 31st 2022
Meseta
Over the Meseta plateau of Castille & León. The Plain of Spain.
IMG_8727Our return flight itinerary was scheduled to be Vigo-Madrid-London Heathrow-Washington Dulles. Viking had arranged a coach transfer from Santiago de Compostela to Vigo airport. (Like us, most of the Santiago group were flying to Madrid to make connections. Vigo appeared to offer a better outgoing flight than Santiago.) To accommodate our early morning departure, the Parador kindly provided a to-go breakfast. This included an apple, nuts, a juice drink, a ham sandwich and a pice of almond cake. The coach departed at 6:30 a.m. for the 9:20 flight from Vigo. Once there, we learned high winds at the Virgo airport caused Iberia to redirect the incoming flight to Santiago. We had already checked in, so everyone then had to collect their luggage and head for Iberia buses to take us and hour's drive back to Santiago!
The flight finally took off at 12:25 p.m. and landed at Madrid at 1:15. By then, everyone had missed their connecting flights. In consolation, I will say that there were grand views of the plain (
Meseta) of Castille & León (no rain on the plain) and of the Sierra de Guadarrama north of Madrid. Now, the question was what to do about an onward
flight. Iberia staff at Santiago said to go to the transit desk at Madrid. Alas, no one in Madrid knew about a "transit desk". The Iberia information desk in Terminal 4 was closed. The general opinion of people we spoke with was that we should go to Terminal T4s, where our connecting flight, long gone, was to have departed. So, we did. But in order to do so, we had to "leave Spain" by clearing outgoing customs. Fortunately, the Iberia information desk in T4s was open. They rebooked us on a direct Iberia flight to Washington Dulles the next day at Noon and gave us hotel and meal vouchers. They instructed us to take the hotel bus from Terminal 4. That meant we needed to "reenter Spain" by clearing inbound customs before taking the airport train from T4s to T4. There was no signage pointing to hotel shuttles, only a sign for "Bus". After following those signs, we ended up at the airport's intercity bus station. Not it. Returning to T4, we saw airport shuttle buses outside the arrival hall. But that was not right. A driver said we needed the hotel shuttles, located somewhere in the opposite direction. Again,
no signage. Eventually we found the shuttle for Madrid Airport Suites and that was it! The driver agreed that, yes, there were no signs pointing to the location of the hotel shuttle buses.
Madrid Airport Suites is a huge hotel occupying a full city block. It is located in a commercial area across an expressway from the end of the north runway. (A great location for plane spotting!). The immediate vicinity appeared abandoned. An NH hotel in one direction was closed and surrounded by a chain link fence. Across from the hotel was an unfinished building, with windows broken out and covered with graffiti. The street plan appeared to have been designed for hotel and office development that has not materialized. Return shuttles for the next morning were already filling up. We made a reservation at check-in for the 7:30 a.m. transfer.
Our room was a suite, which I gather all of the rooms at this hotel are. It featured a bedroom, kitchen/sitting room, bath and entry hall. Very clean and nest. It definitely is intended for extended stays in the Madrid area. There were unusual things about this hotel. Signs in Cyrillic. A Red Cross office in
Madrid–Barajas Airport
Madrid–Barajas Airport (MAD). Control tower at Terminal 4.
IMG_8753 a conference room on our floor. A stroller parking area. It obtained that the hotel had been in use as a Red Cross accommodation for Ukrainian refugees since March. There were more than 1,400 refugees staying here. There were signs for a hotel shop, but I could not locate it. Around dinner time, we ran into two fellow travelers from the cruise. Like us, they had food vouchers, but had been turned away from the hotel restaurant. (They reported it was serving noodles, rice, chicken and fish cafeteria style. Perhaps it had been converted to a quick, high volume, food production operation out of necessity.) In the event, we all decided to order McDonalds via Uber Eats. The food arrived quickly by bicycle.
Monday morning we were up and off to the airport on the shuttle bus at 7:30. Now Susan and I knew the territory of T4 and T4s. We already had our boarding passes, so we made for the train out to T4s. After passport control, the airport makes you walk through the duty-free shopping area to get to the gate area. I did find a small jar of Spanish olives to take home. The Iberia flight
Madrid–Barajas Airport
Madrid–Barajas Airport (MAD). Terminal 4.
IMG_8762 to Washington-Dulles, via an Airbus A330, operated on time.
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D MJ Binkley
Dave and Merry Jo Binkley
Travel These Days
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