It’s been a super busy eight days, which is what happens when we travel with people who are on a schedule! Many things happen quickly so more can be packed in!
In these 8 days, we met up with a friend from Boulder on his first trip to Europe at 69 years of age, and so we toured Madrid so he could get a sense of the Old World. Then, Katherine and Andrew from Australia came and they wanted to see as much as possible in their time here, including a day trip to Valencia to see family not seen in over 40 years, and a day trip to Segovia, both on a high speed trains.
We returned to Madrid for a day between train trips.
We got a reminder why people who work need a rest after they go on vacation, since they try to do as much as possible in the time they have!
For 10 days, we won’t be on our bikes, which means that we’ll be walking and taking public transportation to places.
Getting into Madrid from Segovia was sort of confusing, but ultimately worked out well. We took a regional train from Segovia, starting in a dusty and completely deserted train station with burnt out signs and no printed schedules on the walls. So we asked the few people in the train sitting on the platform if the train was headed to Madrid? Si si, but it goes through Cercedilla! OK…one measure of our acquired flexibility is that Chris and I both agreed we should just take it and figure something out if the train was not the correct one. The time was right, and we were at the right station (probably). We had an unexpected transfer in Cercedilla, which was no big deal except that we had to carry our loaded bikes down and up a flight of stairs to change platforms. There was a handicapped elevator, but it was locked. And elevators were out of order again when we arrived in Madrid, so we carried our bikes and gear up about 5 flights of stairs and up a couple escalators. That was after the train doors closed on Chris’ bike midway, trapping her bike half outside the train as the train started to move. Thank heavens the conductor or safety systems stopped the train before disaster struck, but the doors opened and closed again and again so it was not a good scene. Most passengers sat idly by as the situation unfolded but a lady near me pushed the “open door” button frantically which seemed to help. For a while, half the panniers were outside on the platform and half were still inside the train. Traveling with bikes can be complicated. Madrid gets a low score on bike accessibility.
After lugging our bikes to street level, we navigated to and got situated in our apartment right on Chueca square, had a night by ourselves and then people started arriving the next day.
Madrid is a walking city, full of small streets and grand avenues, busy squares, vibrant bars and restaurants and interesting shops. We explored it by foot and by metro, guided by an app. We ate lots of good food and probably drank too much as well. We experienced some heavy rains just after visiting El Rastro, the giant Sunday flea market near La Latina, triggering multiple emergency alerts on our phones while we were having lunch under giant umbrellas. Seems like our experiences in New Zealand with cyclones were not isolated incidents. Is it global warming, or just us?
After a couple days in Madrid, we took a high speed train to Valencia to visit with Chris and Katherine’s family there.
Their aunt Barbara (Chris’ mother’s cousin) has lived in Valencia, Spain for more than 40 years, married to a lovely Spanish man named Manuel. They have 2 daughters, Susi and Ana, who joined us for lunch in Valencia. Barbara took us on an efficient, lovely tour of Valencia on foot, the old part and the new, before we arrived at the beachside restaurant where we enjoyed Valencia paella and joined up with Susi and Ana.
We had a day in Madrid after Valencia and before Segovia. In Segovia, we had time to see the Alcazar and the cathedral, have lunch (and dinner) and to see the sunset before heading back to Madrid.
Anyone interested in a more detailed article about the construction and history of the aquaduct can find lots here.
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