Madrid
The train trip from Porto to Madrid was interesting with a change in Vigo (Note for the future this place looks interesting and may be worth a visit), thinking we had more time than we did it was quite a shock when we remembered the time zone change making the time for the change a little tighter than we thought, (Please note while Madrid and most of the rest of Spain are WEST of Greenwich, like the rest of Europe other than Portugal, it uses a time zone more appropriate for Florence which is well EAST of Greenwich) it also meant that we would arrive in Madrid after 6 o’clock, which we did not think would be a problem. wrong!
MH Apartments Central Madrid does not have an after-hours reception and the doors were locked when we arrived and we do not speak Spanish so our taxi driver attempted to use the intercom (to an off-site address in Barcelona) to get the door opened which he eventually did for us after I gave my name to the intercom. Once inside we were no better off as there was no one there to help us, there was a phone which I picked up and was told to use “The Machine” to book in then the voice hung up, MACHINE? All I saw was what looked like a ATM, again I picked up the phone this time the voice did not answer but just hung up!
I looked closer to that MACHINE and saw an English flag I pressed this and the language in the screen turned to English now it started to make sense and I could book in using the MACHINE it us issued two keys and told us our room number, with keys in hand we found our room, the experience left me feeling a little down it is the most unwelcome welcome I have ever had, so much for “Hospitality” and in the morning I politely told the now present reception that hospitality was not very hospitable here, Personal contact is, machines are not, only to be told that this is “the way of the future!” (Not for me!) Strike one against MH Apartments Central Madrid, Strike two is the fact that there were no instructions for any of the appliances, no cork screw, and no plug for the kitchen sink making it hard to wash up, the only thing they have in their favour is the location, Walking distance to the things we wanted to see in Madrid even being on the Hop-on Hop-Off bus route and two supermarkets one either side of the entrance at least we could get something for dinner.
In the morning Carol wanted to see the Prado, so we went exploring only to find the ticket line was already hours long, so that was a no as the time left in the day after entering would be much too short to do the Prado justice let alone the annexes attached to the Prado this would be now left to some future visit when we would be able to stay in Madrid for much longer to enable multiple visits, on to the Hop-On Hop-Off bus to see what Madrid had to offer.
There are two routes for the bus which can be used with the purchase of one ticket, we opted for the 2-day ticket which is valid for 48 hours, opting to do the full circuit on each route on the first day looking for places to go to on the second day, something we often do with these buses.
The Blue Route was first and we noted a number of stops to alight the bus, the total time for the journey was about 2 hours, then some lunch and a drink before travelling on the Green Route (the extended route which we found out later was only twice per day).
The Blue route proved to be the more interesting though the commentary was sadly lacking in detail and on the second day non-existent as the driver though he knew better so gave a “live” commentary only in SPANISH which we did not understand, good thing we knew where we wanted to get off.
The Green route on day one had one place of interest we wanted to return to on day two, this however was only in the extended route of which we were unaware, so on day two we missed out on this route and the only place of real interest, which was just a little too far to walk to, BUMMER. (Of all the Hop-on Hop-Off buses we have used in our travels this was the least professional in presentation, had we caught the first extended Green route bus in the morning and alighted where we wanted we would have been there for many hours waiting for the afternoon bus to return to the CBD we were not impressed.)
All in all, Madrid had some very interesting places to see, yet, I feel the saying is correct, neither Carol nor I feel that we want to return to Madrid, Barcelona and Seville, on the other hand are well worth returning to, why? Madrid in my eyes has destroyed much of its character by building modern building among the old distracting from the historic nature of the city, where as the other two cities have retained the core of historic city in their development thus retaining that old world appeal. Madrid is also the first (but not the last place on this trip) we saw heavily armed guards with full automatic rifles at the ready around the city.
We did however enjoy what we did see as you will see in the Photo Gallery. There was one attraction that deserves special attention the Temple of Debod a gift from Egypt for the help Spain gave relocating some temples that were going to be flooded when the Aswan dam was constructed.
Photo Galleries for
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Welcome to Herman and Carolann’s Travels to Europe
Portugal Trip 2023