Hotel Agumar Madrid

Got up and it was still raining. It rained all day. We visited the Plaza Mayor. Real Madrid Football stadium. Definately worth buying a 5 day tourist ticket. (15 euros each). You need to write your passport number in the boxes on the ticket. It also states to carry your documentation on it to confirm the ticket is yours, if you get stopped. You can use it on the metro or on the buses. Zone A is fine for sight-seeing within Madrid central and for getting back to the station. Well we atempted t...

A better day than yesterday. Blue sky appeared as we ate breakfast. Although it was windy and cold. About 10c. Who'd have thought we'd be wearing gloves and hats in Madrid! Sundy lunch started in the smoking area of a Cafe but then, as ever, we changed tables and were able to move to the non-smoking area. You forget what it's like to stink of cigarette smoke! Lovely meal, but can't remember the name. It was on the main road running along the bottom of the botanical Gardens.

I am writing, dear readers, on the express train between Barcelona and Madrid. Now this is a serious high speed train. The indicator display in the carriage just hit 301 kph and seems to be averaging around 280. For those more comfortable in the old imperial stuff that's over 170 mph. A beautifully smooth and silent train as well. I swear it banks on the curves. We will cover the 600 km odd in well under three hours. I take back everything I said about Spanish trains. This is superb and what'...

Today the tour started with a bus trip round some of the Madrid sights. We had an excellent local commentator with good English, an impressive knowledge of Madrid as it is now, considerable historical knowledge and the ability to during the day, gradually explain much of Spanish history in the past thousand years and the things that have shaped her people. She gave us a great deal during the day. We started with a simple drive around looking at major buildings, architectural styles and the st...

We had the last day of the tour of Spain on the road today. We covered a lot of territory as we headed north to Madrid, both our starting and finishing point. We had all begun to have very mixed feelings about the end. We had seen so much of the rich culture of the area, had made good friends among our group and shared many good times over the 12 days. But we were looking forward to home and before that the pure mechanics of getting to our transport out - plane for all I think. We were also k...