Blogs from District of Madrid, Spain, Europe - page 2

If you read the blog title, date and location details (you’d be the only one) you would know we have moved a little from central Madrid to the outskirts of Madrid and quite near the airport. We found a cheapish but nice place 5 minutes from the airport with a free shuttle bus that will get us to the airport as the desired time. They must be pretty used to shuttling guests as it’s part of their check in procedure and they had the desired check in times for all the airlines, what terminal they departed from... Despite the tourist season being in full flight here (I assumed based on the sheer number of tourists in central Madrid) and the fact that it’s 30 degrees the hotel has declared ‘busy time’ over and closed their pool ... read more

Things are looking up. So I thought I’d include looking up photos exclusively. That’s not a bad as it sounds as here in Madrid the architecture rewards looking up. The shots are from the hop on hop off bus which we spent a deal of time on. We almost completed both routes but hoped off a little early and the Plaza de Mayor because it’s interesting and more accurately because it’s near the Mercado de San Miguel. It’s very touristy and a bit pricey but it has numerous tapas style offerings and all Spanish as opposed to where we go at night which is quite local, well priced but has small dishes from numerous destinations most decidedly non Spanish. I then did a walking tour which I always find interesting. The facts and figures and stories ... read more

We had such a lovely day venturing to Toledo this morning. It's a medieval city 45 minutes from Madrid, and the original capitol of Spain. Historically, Jews Christians and Muslims lived here peaceably until 1492 when Ferdinand and Isabella evicted Jews and Muslims. Signs of the Jewish quarter still exist in small blue tiles inlaid in the cobblestone, showing menorahs and the Hebrew word for life, and Moorish influence on architecture can be seen in the horseshoe-shaped archways of the synagogue-turned-mosque-turned-church. Citizens were preparing for the Corpus Christi festivities tomorrow, so hundreds of children were gathered to lay flowers in front of the church, and the cobblestoned streets were decorated in bright floral adornments. Banners and flags flew from balconies. There was a celebratory hum in the air! After Toledo we returned to Madrid for lunch. ... read more

Bonjour à tous, hier je disais que les nuits se suivent et ne ressemblent pas, ce fut encore le cas. La rue dans laquelle est le studio ne doit faire plus de 5m de large, mais j'ai eu l'impression de dormir, au bord de l'autoroute, les piétons bien chauds qui parlent fort, et tous les bruits de canalisation de l'immeuble. Si j'avais su je n'aurais pas réservé 2 nuits. Dommage car l'emplacement est parfait, et avec le confort à l'intérieur. A 7h30, je faisais tourner un machine, un café au bistrot du coin, à 9h, j'étais en route. Mon parcours étant prêt depuis hier au soir. Madrid, capitale d'Espagne est située en plein Coeur du royaume, à 670m d'altitude, comptant une population de 3,2 millions d'habitants, et 6,5 pour l'agglomération, en intra-muros c'est la troisième ville ... read more

In Spain, we passed through a very quick and painless Customs process and were cleared to enter Spain! A couple change over on the train later and we were downtown! We made it to the Airbnb address 10 minutes early. Despite our attempt, it appeared we would have to wait for the prescribed 9am check-in time. 9 AM came and went with multiple trips in and out of the building thanks to tenants trying to figure out how to meet up with our host. At 9:30 we hunted down a Starbucks for WiFi, which unfortunately want free so we grabbed a couple of teas to get the password. I wrote a note to the host. Fifteen minutes later we have up and told him we were canceling and going elsewhere. A Google search later we were ... read more