Madrid
December 27th. Today Madrid. The distance between Barcelona and Madrid is … kms, further than the distance between Auckland and Wellington, but we went there for the day, and back again, on a high speed train. The journey to Madrid is over a lot of stony, arid ground, some covered in low scrub. Other parts of the journey were over cultivated land, vineyards, or land covered in trees. And it occurred to me … I hadn’t seen a single animal in a field. Not one. Not on any of our trips to Valencia or El Vendrell nor in all the travel we did through France. France is colder, but the temperatures in Spain are not so different than New Zealand. Are all their animals kept indoors?
Barcelona beats Madrid hands down as a destination. Our opinion may have been influenced by a small number of things, Madrid’s inadequate and unkempt toilets facilities, and a fleet of old hop-on hop-off buses called Madrid Vision, where the sound system doesn’t work (so we couldn’t find out just what we were looking at). We flagged the whole exercise away. Bored and freezing cold, we were rescued by spotting a green leaf in a window. We retired to the James Joyce Irish pub for the next couple of hours. The decor and atmosphere is welcoming and suitably Irish, the staff incredibly helpful and friendly with information on a variety matters www.jamesjoycemadrid.com
Good choice of watering hole. The Irish are everywhere, and doing it well. Amazing about the trains and animals eh. We are so spoiled here – just watching the kereru in the puriri tree outside my office window, munching away on the berries. Keep up the good news stories … very interesting.
Gail