We did not want to leave San Sebastian in the least, but we dragged ourselves away because our hostel was already booked for the next four nights and set on the road to Madrid. Now Michael has been a rockstar on the stick shift, and this time he finally got to have some fun. The first two hours of the drive to Madrid were a virtual grand prix track through the mountains. He had a blast needless to say, and we dropped down into the desert to reach our destination.
What no one had told us was that Madrid sits in a geographical location akin to Bakersfield. When we arrived at around 8 pm, it was 90 F and dryer than I ever knew air could be. I could barely breathe as we hiked up to our hostel, but luckily we were pleasantly surprised with a clean, welcoming, air conditioned accommodation. With a lot of help from the staff, we spent the next few days (between siestas of course) exploring the fairly little there is to see in Madrid. We finally made a few friends and ate our first tapas, and became fully immersed in the Spanish schedule. Neither of us have much to say about Madrid, other than the hostel and the people we met were what made the experience positive - that, and the wild peacocks in the Royal Gardens!
We keep saying this trip is a way of sorting out places we want to return to and places we don't, and while we do not regret our stop there, Madrid is decisively on the don't list. It seemed to have a lot of nightlife, and the Royal Gardens were beautiful, but there are so many other more charming and interesting places I'd rather spend my time... We looked forward to full vacation mode in Marbella and would not be disappointed at all :)
No comments:
Post a Comment