Sunday and we were due to leave for Marrakech on an Easyjet flight scheduled at 6.30 pm. We decided to check out of the Apartment early, bought the day pass of €4.00 which was good for any of the metro or bus trips around the city, for the day, including to and fro the airport, went to the airport to store our luggage and returned to the city. Storage bins at the airport were only €7.00 each for the largest sized ones and we only needed two of them.
In the city we decided to check out areas we have not visited, bought lunch, took more pictures, and returned to the airport by ~ 4.00pm. On checking-in at the Easyjet counter we discovered that we needed a visa to go to Morocco. Jeezzz…., what a disappointment. It takes at least one day to get a visa and if we were to arrange for it we have to wait until Monday. One day gone and with travel day etc. left us with too short a time to spend in Marrakech. So we sat and reviewed our options. We have until early Thursday morning for our return flight to London from Madrid.
We considered various options and decided to rent a car and drive out of Madrid to other cities of Spain. We chose to go to Valencia, a 3 hours drive out of Madrid. We tried to get into the internet at the airport to try and find hotels in Valencia but could not find an internet outlet in the general public areas of the airport. The ones available were in the departure lounges after the security check-in. So we took the gamble and just drove to Valencia and try our luck at a hotel in Valencia or anywhere in the rest areas along the way. The highways we passed through appear to be a little narrow compared to other highways we go through in other countries. When overtaking heavy trucks and other wide vehicles the space for us seemed rather limited. There was not much side table to the highways too. They do have a lot of land and I wondered why they limit the size of their highways. There were no hotels en-route to Valencia but the first one we checked on arrival in Valencia had vacant rooms. It was then 2.00am and we just checked in as we needed the rest.
The next day was spent going around Valencia, but not before assuring a hotel room in Barcelona, our next destination. Fahrul went into one internet café and booked a hotel in Barcelona on-line. Apartment hotels apparently were more expensive in comparison.
The internet cafe was close to the town mosque, where we went to perform our daily obligations to the Almighty, and in the same location were a number of suitable restaurants for us. We had lunch in one of them, a Turkish restaurant with typical Turkish food that proved to be quite a change from the usual kebab and pizzas we were used to during our travels in Spain.
The operator was a young Turk who could not speak English but understood what we wanted and was very accomodating. He described how he was going to prepare and serve us and we were happy to agree. It turned out to be a good lunch. 
We went to Valencia beach area and then took the tram to the centre of the city. The original walled-city has turned modern but they have preserved some of the old buildings as heritage. New roads built are large three or four lanes ones but the city streets are very narrow with buildings very close to each other.
The walled part was actually walls built on the river sides but the river had a long time dried up and parks and playground have taken over. Several bridges, built across the river for easy communications, were dedicated for pedestrians as well as motorized traffic. 
The main entrance to the city, a gate tower, looked very old. The metallic bars, bolts and nuts, holding the thick wooden bars and thick planks together on the gate, and the wood, still very strong, have wilted at the edges. A bell had also seen better days. This side of the ‘old’ river, beyond the main entrance gate must have been the original old part of the city, and the other side being the new and modernly designed part of the city.
We took the tram back to where we started earlier, close to the beach and where we had parked the car. It was 10pm then and time for us to leave for Barcelona, a 3 hours drive. There were at least seven tolls along the highway to Barcelona and we went through at least a dozen tunnels. Perhaps that was why there were so many tolls, to recoup investments in building the highway through the hills and mountains. It was raining heavily when we arrived in Barcelona and to locate the hotel took some time as the road system around the area were undergoing realignment with several new roads being built that the GPS guiding us was itself confused!! We found the hotel in the end and welcomed the opportunity to properly rest…..
MKI Ramblings Unlimited,
Barcelona, Catalunya,
España
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