Introduction to Spain

Palace at Madrid

We left Zermatt at 5.30...a pretty early start, and a pretty cool one as well. They have these cute electric vehicles, a bit like a.. golf cart which zoom around the streets so the guy had us at the station well within time. It was a pretty uneventful trip to Zurich until we were greeted by the news that our flight was delayed by three hours , apparently the plane hadn't even left Madrid for the return trip!!! Our intended sightseeing with Cathy and Andrew would have to be delayed :(

We arrived at the hotel about 7pm that night..pretty knackered but not too tired to have a decent feed. In Spain the restaurants don't take bookings for dinner until 9pm!!! We managed to (or Tony did) pull the poor hungry tourist routine and we arrived at the restaurant at 8.30! ( not much of a compromise, I know, but the best we could do!!) We were recommended here as it served traditional Spanish fare , an added bonus was a "quatro" of men dressed in pantaloons and tights serenading a patrons - good introduction to the local traditions!!

The next day was spent getting a feel for the place...a couple of feeble attempts at sightseeing, however after sighting the palace, we decided that was enough and we just cruised for the rest of the day...sometimes there is such a thing as too much culture :)

The following morning we picked up our vehicle, the combination of limited Spanish on as well as the generally laid back approach of the staff, meant that it was 2 1/2 hours before we actually crammed the four very large and heavy suitcases into the back and headed off towards Toledo.

Not too bad a place to spend 2 hrs waiting!!