Olé
| G’day all I’m not one the raconteur type today ─ am just inundated with commitments (the shit and shat sorts, mind you) and for now, a short vacation account from overseas. Fresh off the plane, a French penpal family friend of mine, reported their latest sojourn à la Spaniarde. Please excuse any misspelling, the tale below in unedited. Madrid looks absolutely fabulouz with a zed. Naga, hola any inaccuracy/ misinformation / misconception / misimpression from the Gauls? a prestissimo un abbraccio a tutti |
As you can see we are back home since yesterday, the stay in Madrid was agreable the weather sunny but cold ...anyway it was better than here!
We stay one night in Bruxelles and did our check in at a few steps from the hotel everything went well and we did the travel room to room in 5 hours ...We were surprised to land in a new terminal (T4 in Madrid Barrajas) fortunateley I asked to someone because we had to take a shuttle to reach the T2 in which you can take the subway. From there it was simpler ..the subway is clean and very convenient people are more disciplined and calmer than in Paris and electronic panels even inform you about the waiting train ...many stations have beautiful names e.g. "mar de cristal (sea of cristal) or "delicias" or Goya Velasquez etc...but also "Lavapiès" (foot washing ):-)
We were glad to discover that the hotel was quite in the middle of the Madrid's Manhattan (Gran via ) among theaters cinemas etc ..and the streets filled at 18 h with a thick crowd (really thicker than Hong kong !!) but in Hong kong people have a built-in "anticollision system" which is inexistent there ....
So we manage to do most of our visits by foot ....the restaurants were cheaper than in France (Half price) and sometimes the (full) bottle of wine included ....(water is rare there :-) ) the service was much much faster than in France !! but the food was simpler ...and times of meals completely out of schedule for we northerners (14 h to begin the dinner which finished at 18 h ) and the supper began at 22h..! [addendum: I reckon they meant lunch at 14 hours, not dinner, unless they're in Quebec but that's a cultural titbit for another time. macchiato]
Spanish are more direct than us they give much less smiles and welcoming words in restaurants, but they were always very rapid and helpful . The hotel was quite ok and we filled at least three "appreciations forms"
At night people are noisy chatting loud , playing music etc ...but in the morning I was very surprise to find a subway station completely filled of people that were COMPLETELY silencious ...apparently working is very very bad for Spanish's morale ..:-) (mine too)
We found a very spruce city full of colourful and neat buildings most of the streets were very calm with even a "village " feeling ...all sorts of architecture were present (Middle age modernist art nouveau classical etc..)
We could visit for the first time a south American culture museum and also the royal Palace the Prado and Thyssen museum a telecommunication museum and even a railway museum ...and lots of restaurants !
Unfortunately our return flight was delayed of three hours and with a cascade of events it tooks us 12 hours to go back home .....so I will never take Iberia's planes again ...furthermore a meal was not even offered on board !! and we had to buy the "menu del dia" (don't laugh ) : a sandwich a glass of water and a chocolate bar "courtesy of Iberia" !!!
This is a low cost company attitude ...
Well let's forget that ...have a look at the first series of photos ...and in the next mail series n°2 mainly buildings for a start ...
Evelyne is behind the lions standing in the "Cortes " (the parliament)
You can see also the royal palace , the plazza mayor views in the Gran Via at night etc...
If you ask yourself : no I am not paid by the Spanish tourist board :-))
What are these?
Bon-bon spaniard? Fridge ornaments? Crème lollypops?
