Madrid

Trip Start Sep 05, 2008
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42
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Trip End Jan 01, 2009


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Flag of Spain and Canary Islands  , Madrid,
Tuesday, December 16, 2008

I got to Madrid yesterday morning. I was very exhausted when our bus arrived at 6:30am. The man next to me filled his seat and all of our combined leg room. I had a very difficult time sleeping on the bus because I didn't have any room to get comfortable. I decided to leave my bags at the bus station and took the metro into the city.

The Royal Palace was easy enough to find so I walked around it and in the surrounding parks until I was frozen and then went inside the palace to defrost. It's beautiful and has a few really interesting museums. There is an armory museum that takes forever to go through on the audio tour. I also walked around the upper floor of the palace and on my way up the amazing staircase I took a photo. Someone was hollering at me the entire time. I realized that they were directing their shouts at me when I was just about to take the photo. So I took it before turning around innocently and being told not to take any more photos Fountain in Plaza de Espana
Fountain in Plaza de Espana
 . Whoops.

Once I had spent a few hours in the palace I walked around the surrounding area. I figured it was a good place for a hostel and I would stumble upon one if I looked hard enough. I did find one after about ten minutes. It was recommended by a popular guidebook in a few issues so I thought it was good enough for me. It was actually really nice. The woman in charge didn't speak English but had no problem telling me all about Madrid in Spanish. I listened carefully and picked up at least 4% of what she was saying. At least she gave me a map with the hostel marked on it.

I went back to the bus station and got my bags, then went back to my room and had a shower. It was about 4pm by this time and I was drained so I thought I'd take a nap before doing some more sightseeing. I woke up at about 2am. Too late for sightseeing! So instead I looked for cheap flights back to Gatwick and did eventually find one. I booked it for tonight and then slept a couple more hours.

I spent the morning in Madrid doing some more wandering, this time in the Bourbon district of the city. There are a lot of impressive buildings here that now house museums. I didn't have time to go in any unfortunately but I had a nice walk around before heading to the airport. Madrid is pretty awesome having the bus station and the airport connected to the metro system. It makes things much easier for me!
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Comments

starlagurl
starlagurl on Dec 22, 2008 at 07:49PM

Quick trip!
That was a quick little jaunt to Madrid. You sure saw some amazing things though.

Louise Brown
TravelPod Community Manager

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