Madrid España.b

We had planned a trip to Madrid and Marrakech from UK. Early reservations were made on-line for the trip. We got reasonably cheap tickets on EasyJet Budget Airlines and also more than reasonable rates for accommodations in Madrid and Marrakech, all done on-line.

We left late afternoon on Monday for London and stayed overnight in a hotel in Gatwick as our flight to Madrid was early morning from Gatwick airport. Fahrul had arranged for a long term parking of the car at one of the enterprise catering for such parking while providing shuttle service to the airport from the car park location. We got up very early on Tuesday morning and headed for the parking location. No hassle here. It was a very professionally organized system and everything happened orderly. The car was taken care of and our luggage were transferred into the shuttle bus and later taken off systematically. Checking in for the flight was also a breeze and boarding process went very well. We had some time to spare before the actual flight and rested at the general lounge with me doing my favorite past time, people watching. I am apprehensive for this journey though as I inadvertently left my walking stick in the car. The stick would certainly have been useful for me as I expect to do a lot of walking where I am going. I hope I will not be none the worse for it!!

I was still a little under the weather for this travel and I managed to catch some sleep on the flight. It was a 2½ hours flight and I slept all the way into Madrid airport. Going through Madrid immigration and customs was also a breeze. However it was a long walk from the aircraft to the exit point of the airport, including walking up three flights of stairs and down three flights, which was a bit too hard on my knees.

Najla, Playful As usual

A quick check with the information centre showed certain choices we have in going into the city and also the need to change currency into Euro as evidently Spain and all others of Europe would only accept Euro as the currency. I also found out that English is not widely spoken and I can expect some language difficulties.

We decided to take the Metro into the city and to the apartment. The first language difficulty came soon enough, that was when I wanted to purchase the metro ticket. The instructions on the ticket vending machines were in Spanish and the lady at the ticket counter could not speak English. Even sign language was difficult since there were many categories of tickets and it took the lady and me quite sometime to understand each other. I got the correct tickets and off we went to collect the keys to the apartment and then to the apartment. It was not difficult, even with the luggage we had with us, to go by metro, but I had to be vigilant at noticing the station names and the changes of train to make to reach our destination. That went without a hitch. Along the way there were many helping hands in assisting us to carry our luggage especially up staircases.

Somewhere Close To The Apartment

It was a nice apartment that we got with full facilities and comfortable. It is located in the old city or the older part of Madrid but the apartment, although in an old building, appear to have been refurbished and modernized. Within the vicinity are many shops and outlets for us to get any supplies we need. So, we quickly got ourselves settled, walked around the area and noted the grocery stores, restaurants and other shopping outlets that are available. Dinner was Doner Kebab that we bought from an Iranian outlet very close to the apartment. We look forward to checking out more of Madrid in the days to come and hope to be able to include a trip to Cordoba as well. Ah well! Let us see how the day progress……

MKI Ramblings Unlimited
Old City Apartment, Madrid
España.