Travel Day to Madrid

The posting below details Thurs, Aug 28 which was mostly a travel day between Bordeaux and Madrid:

Today is a very long travel day to Madrid.  We left the hotel around 10 AM for our train at 10:51.  

We arrived at the train station by 10:25.  There was a very long line at the pastry shop, so we both loaded up with vending machine goodies.  When our train line was announced, it was right beside McDonald's so I broke down and got McDonald's for the first time on the trip...three weeks in isn't too bad!  You order by kiosks and then queue up to pick up the food.  Was a very long wait for 2 cheeseburgers and fries.  All the order announcements were in French - I should have at least tried to learn numbers in French.

Our ride to Irun was about 2.5 hours.  When we arrived in Irun, we noticed an earlier train to Madrid - sounded so much better than waiting in the train station for almost 3 hours for our connection.  We tried to talk with the ticket agent - in Spanish since we were now just across the boarder in Spain.  No luck - he kept saying that we were on a fast train (the earlier train arrived in Madrid only about 20 minutes earlier than our scheduled train).  He couldn't understand that we would prefer to be on the train longer rather than sit in a deserted train station for 3 hours, waiting for the faster train.  

Along the ride to Irun, still close to Bordeaux:

There really was nothing at the Irun station - no cafe (the cafe space had been deserted for at least several years), no customer vending machines (Bridget stumbled on some vending machines, but was quickly yelled at that they were only for employees), no Wifi, no gift shop, no convenience store...nothing.  

The benches were visually interesting and a good repurposing of old railroad wood and rails...but comfortable they were not.  Especially not sitting on very hard wood for 3 hours.

A large group for the Barcelona train started gathering, so we had excitement for a while.

Finally, our train arrived and they opened boarding - we had to queue up in line for our tickets to be scanned - no security, no x-ray, no IDs, nothing.  We had crossed into Spain at this point, but no Passport checks.  

Bridget and I gave official welcomes to Spain to each other!

The ride to Madrid was just under 6 hours.  We quickly learned that not all trains and tracks are created equal.  The Spanish have learned nothing from the French - the train was so rough, so much movement, we could barely walk to the bar car.  Luckily it was connected to our car.  With nothing in the Irun station, we had to settle for ham and cheese sandwiches on the train.

One of my few pics from the train ride:

After about 4 hours on the train, we were ready for the trip to end!

Luckily the last bit of the train ride felt quick and we arrived in Madrid.  We quickly got a taxi and the ride was about 20 minutes.  Many bicyclists were protesting by blocking most lanes of traffic and slowing down everything.  They want more bike lanes and/or space on the streets.

The hotel - The Westin Palace - is a very nice, old, historic property with a very opulent lobby.  Our bags were pulled from our hands almost immediately.  I'm pretty insistent on always carrying my own bag, but the bellman was so insistent and aggressive that I just gave up and let him take it.  Check-in was relatively quick - we had been upgraded to a suite with one bed even though I had booked a room with two beds.  The clerk made a quick call and said that the bed would be separated.

We went on to our floor and the room was a VERY long walk from the elevator.  When we arrived a small army of the housekeeping staff was in the room, separating the bed and re-making it.  In the end, we now have two ex-big twin beds that have about 4 inches between them.  Not sure that was worth the effort!

We both fell onto the sofa in the sitting room and waited for the bags.  Started e-mails and enjoying wifi after being without it all day.  We realized that after 45 minutes the bags still had not arrived.  I called down and was concerned when I had to describe them.  They arrived within seconds of hanging up the phone.

By this point I had lost all motivation to go out even though we only have two nights in Madrid.  Off to bed around 1 AM.