Wednesday 18 April 2012 - Madrid before a day of new adventures
Day 6 and 152 to go
We are enjoying the luxury of a lay in as not much comes to life before 10am. Today however, we had to be up and packed and checking out at 10am. The staff at Room Mate Laura Hotel have been terrific and it is sad to have to go but a new adventure awaits.
This morning we spent our time walking to Retiro Park, a little like Kings Park as it is large and in the middle of the city. They have many lakes, water features, palaces and gardens to wander around and enjoy. There were many tour groups also taking time out amongst the greenery. Paul and I also found 2 black swans at the Crystal Palace pond! Just a touch of home.
After wandering the park for a couple of hours we headed back toward the hotel, stopping along the way for lunch and then collecting our bags and beginning the trek to the campervan yard in greater Madrid.
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As you can imagine carrying suitcases and backpacks through the local subway, squeezing onto carriages, feeling lost, asking for directions were all quite stressful but somehow we managed it and we will have the pleasure of doing it all in reverse in a couple of weeks.
In the meantime with the subway and train journey behind us. We caught a cab from Alcala de Henares and were dropped at the campervan yard only to find it closed. With little else to do we parked ourselves outside to wait. JOY!
About 30min later Marcos arrived to run us through the van and by 5pm we were on the road. Again stressful but once we were used to the right hand drive we set the GPS to a lake spot I had found on the net which looked like a good place to whole up for our first night.
We drove through small towns, many crumbling around them. Everything is just so old. Eventually we stopped in one of the small towns and bought a few groceries before finally making it to our lakeside destination by 730pm.
First thing to do; unpack, then familiarise ourselves with the van. Paul went for a wander down to the lake while I organised dinner.
By 915pm dinner was complete and we were crawling into bed. Exhausted!
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