At Least The Trains Are Nice? {Madrid}

After spending nearly four days in Nice enjoying the beach, I would be lying if I said I was overly thrilled to take a train to Madrid…but alas, we hopped on an afternoon train headed toward Montpellier, France, where we caught a train to Spain the next day. I have been to Madrid once before, five years ago, and I was looking forward to re-visiting the first European city I’ve ever been to. Our first experience on a Spanish train to Barcelona was quite pleasant, as we had roomy seats and more spacious aisles in our train car. Once in Barcelona, we had a bit of a layover…so we did what any American would do: went to McDonald’s. Hey, they had free wifi…and to Michael’s delight, a “Euro” menu. I do believe this is one of the first places I’ve been able to find truly free wifi…where you could sit there and not feel the need to buy a drink or something in exchange for using their internet. Ha.

The Royal Palace

A little while later, we hopped on the second train to Madrid. This was our first experience with a real high-speed train…and it was pretty awesome! We were cruising along at about 180 miles per hour…so it really didn’t take too long to get to Madrid. This was hands down our favorite train. The entire train appeared to be a “first-class” train…compared to what we were used to, it was very luxurious. They even had a movie playing(!)…but it was in Spanish, with Spanish subtitles. Fail. I can’t complain…after all, it was our most pleasant train ride yet, and it made us slightly less cynical toward the European train system.

Since we got to Madrid around 8pm, we decided to just make a trip to the supermarket (El Corte Ingles=my favorite European department store) to pick up some necessities…aka peanut butter. We were not able to find it ANYwhere in Nice, so we picked up the first jars we could find. Unfortunately for us, peanut butter in Spain is 4 Euros per jar…not quite like the .89 cent jars we found in the UK and Ireland. After spending way too much time for our own good in a department store, we headed back to our hostel, which was more like a hotel. We had a private room with a balcony…but it had a shower in the room. Literally IN THE ROOM. Just a curtain separated it from the rest of the room. ‘Twas interesting. We did have A/C, which was much-appreciated in the desert-like heat of Madrid. Except Michael turned it down to 15 degrees Celsius…which is like 50-something degrees. He woke up at 8am to me whining in my sleep…because I was so cold. At least the A/C works?

For some reason (uhh…maybe being sick and just not getting enough sleep) I slept until 1pm. Then, we decided we should book the rest of our hotels for Paris and London since we will be there within the week. Once that was done, we had sufficiently killed 4 more hours. We headed out that evening to see some of the city, since we hadn’t done much of that yet. Ha. We walked by the Royal Palace on our way to Plaza Mayor, where we planned to have churros and chocolate. Myself and a few of our friends had them when we visited Madrid before, and they were excellent. Unfortunately, when we stepped into Plaza Mayor, the little shop where I had churros before was no longer there. We walked around and looked at all of the café menus, and settled on an outdoor café to finally try the local fare. Although the churros were good, they were not as great as I remembered, and Michael was not overly impressed, either. I think it was just the place we went to…I’m sure we could have found some even better ones!

Churros and Chocolate!

Plaza Mayor

Thursday, our last day in Madrid, we headed for a cable car ride that promised views of the city…all for 5 Euros. I admit that I was hesitant to step onto this little car held by a thin cable. For good reason, apparently. The views were not spectacular, and on our return journey, it sounded like the cable car was going to break and we were going to fall to our death. Not being dramatic AT. ALL. Let’s just say, we were so glad to be on solid ground after that…………

Before we packed up and headed to the train station, we stopped for some Sangria. I originally was going to try Paella the second time around (the first ended badly 5 years ago…when I found out there was calamari in it), but I ended up nixing that idea in favor of a Caprese Panini. Mmm…italian food…sorry ‘bout it, Spain. After lunch, we took the Metro to the train station, where we are currently sitting….waiting for our 13-hour train to Paris! We decided we would try out the reclining chairs on this train, after a mediocre experience with couchettes on our train to Rome. So we’ll see how that goes…if we are able to get any sleep. At any rate, I know I’ll be able to sleep on our plane ride back to the good ol’ USA in less than a week because I am SO behind on sleep!

Next post will be from The City of Lights, Paris 😉

-xoxo

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