The five hour train journey to Madrid is a mixture of many things, including annoying fifteen minute sleeps, and never being able to find a comfortable position. I also discovered a new favourite Spanish Food in bocadillo tortillas. It's basically a Spanish Omellette, full of potato and onion, in a crispy baguette. Amazing. Spanish cuisine hasn't been as good as I had hoped, although a vegetable paella we had in Barcelona was nice. Spanish drinks on the other hand have been very good, and have included two of my favourite drinks of the trip – Cocoalat (Choc Milk) and Kas (Orange Soft Drink).
Anyway, back to the trip. After arriving in Madrid, we went via the extremely nice Metro system, towards our hostel. Trains in Europe are on a whole other level, and Spains have been no exception. When they have nearly 15 different lines, stops everywhere, and trains coming at every stop every 2 or so minutes, it really makes Perth's system look so average.
We looked around Madrid for the rest of the afternoon, starting off in the centre of the city, the Puerto De Sol, and then walked past a heap of historic buildings. (read: old churches). We eventully made it to the Royal Palace, and nearby park.
Palacio Real (Royal Palace)
Templo de Debod - Egyptian Monument in the middle of Madrid.
We then headed up Gran Via (Grand Boulevard), and back to the hostel.
As we decided to head to nearby town Toledo the next day, we headed to the train station to buy tickets. When you buy long distance tickets in Spain, the easiest and most certain way of getting them, is to go to the station the day before, and buy them over the counter. When you arrive, you take a number, and wait. In Barcelona, we had to wait 45 minutes or so which at the time, we thought was quite a lengthy wait. Oh no. Our number at Madrid – 323. The number currently being served – 134. Ouch. We sit and wait about 30 minutes. It's up to about 160. I realise it's now 7pm, and we might be here for a while.
As I said before, the stations in Spain are awesome – and Atocha in Madrid is no exception. It's like a shopping centre. So, with that being the case, we walk around for a bit. We come back at least 45 minutes later, and it's in the mid 200's. At this point, I decide to go get food, walk around a bit more. 45 minutes later, and I'm sure my number must be nearly up. It's at about 275. I decide to sit, and wait, not wanting to walk off and miss my number being called. About half an hour later, around 9pm, my number comes up, and our tickets for the following day are purchased.
Atocha train station
Toledo was only a 30 minute train ride away, so we arrived at just before 10 in the morning. The old part of town is remarkable, full of alleys and slops and castle walls and essentially old, old buildings. Very Spanish, and traditional, with a lot of churches and so on. We spend the good part of the morning there, and enjoy a nice drink in some sort of very cool African themed bar.
Toledo
After heading from the bar, to the remains of an old Roman Circus, and local markets, we end up in the newer, modern part of Toledo, that looks much like any other modern city or town. We explore this a bit, grab a late lunch, and decide to head back to Madrid. Once we get to the train station, quite a substantial way out of town, we discover the next train doesn't leave for just over an hour. Thankfully, we find a nice courtyard, and await the next train. Once back in Madrid, we head back to Gran Via to pick up some dinner, and get our stuff ready for our flight to Morocco the following day.
On the morning before our flight, we had a final walk around the streets of Madrid, and headed to the home of Real Madrid – the club FIFA called the greatest football club in the world. With not enough time to do a great deal, we made our way back to the hostel, picked up our bags and headed to the airport, pretty keen to get to Morocco.
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