LYNN’S SPAIN/MOROCCO
JOURNAL
Day 17, Saturday, May 25
Travel Day to Madrid (Ronda to Sevilla to Madrid)
We hadn’t succeeded in getting our Ronda to Sevilla bus tickets yesterday (apparently can only buy them the day of travel). We had inquired at the front desk, thinking from looking at the train schedule the day we arrived that it was possible but awkward by train. Turns out the solution is to go to Sevilla by bus. We had learned the day before that there were 7, 10, and 5 o’clock buses, a truncated schedule for Saturdays. At the bus station, we learned that you could just buy a ticket on the bus, that the station was closed all day. So we went back to the hotel and had breakfast—expensive but lavish (and this time I made a proper lunch, unlike yesterday). We paid up and said good-by to our beautiful hotel. I arranged for a taxi to the bus station since by then we had all our stuff. Turns out the office was soon to open up (we had obviously not gotten the right information from the previous trip to the bus station). We still had to wait 10 more minutes though.
We bought our tickets, but it was a little unclear which bus (and the clerk was not very friendly). We went outside to the bus area to investigate—turns out our bus later drove in. We loaded up our stuff and climbed in. It was only about 2 hours, but very hot despite the bus supposedly having air conditioning. It seems to be at the whim of the bus driver whether or not to turn on the air conditioning. As was true of Moroccan buses, it was unclear why and where the bus stopped to let people on and off, certainly not always at designated bus stops. We saw fields of red poppies and bright yellow sunflowers—common sights in both Spain and Morocco.
At Sevilla we took a taxi from the bus station to the train station. We had found the train station by mistake when we were in Sevilla before because we got lost going from the main highway to our hotel, La Muralla. We had time there to shop around and relax. I bought a couple of key chains (Rico for Fede and Reyes for Arthur) and a box of cookies made in a convent. At the pastry shop, I also bought a couple of tile fridge magnets—I had seen a lot of small tiles for sale in Spain before but had not bought them (I think they were not magnets). We saw a lot of tile work both in Spain and Morocco—a Moorish motif. The woman helped me to buy a good box of cookies for travel, wrapped securely. They were great—a little like shortbread cookies but not overly sweet or rich. How quaint to find such a shop in the train station—would not find such here.
We had bought second-class tickets on the AVE, they being $30 less each than the first-class tickets, but they were fine—better than most of the first-class seats we had in Morocco. It was a 2.5-hour trip—pretty smooth and of course fast. Once back in Madrid, we took a short taxi ride across town to the same hotel we had had before: Hostal Persal on Plaza del Angel, not far from Sol.
Back at the Hotel Persel
Our first stop was El Corte Ingles on Sol—to get T-shirts for me. They didn’t have a wide selection—no Schiesser—so bought 2 T-shirts from Princepa, a Spanish company, I think. I later found out that I had bought medium, not small—it had been pointed out that just the labeling (medium) was wrong, but when I turned the package around, turns out they really were medium. I will do a hot wash/dryer number on them. In another building of the same store, I bought 2 children’s books for Mateo.
We dropped off our things and went to an adjoining square, Plaza de Santa Ana, larger than our own and fronted by beautiful buildings (a hotel and a theatre). In the square, which is under reconstruction, there is a statue of Calderon de la Barca, the playwright. We decided to finally try tapas. The waiter wasn’t that helpful so we only ordered things we recognized: bread with tomatoes, chicken, smoked salmon, and cheese. Four orders of tapas were enough for a supper, plus sangria for me, beer for Philip.
After the tapas, we took an evening stroll through medieval Madrid from our Madrid guidebook. It was kind of frustrating. The descriptions from the book left a lot to be desired (no connecting streets). The map we were using was falling apart. I was trying to man the description book and the map, Philip the street signs—we really needed three people. After wandering through the old streets of more charming cities, this walk did not seem that special. But it did start out well—we had to walk through the Plaza Mayor to get there, and the Plaza de la Villa, which is where the walk started, was very pretty. The Plaza de la Villa faces la Calle Mayor, a major street, but on three sides it features three older buildings, built at different times. It was one of the top 25 sights in Madrid, according to the guidebook. On the way back, we stopped at the Plaza Major again: lots of people, music, coffee at an outdoor café. It was a short walk home to bed.
Plaza Mayor