Round the World Trips, Spain

The view out from our hotel window down onto Gran Via

A lazy morning sleeping in, followed by some domestics like clothes washing that hasn´t been done for a week or 2.
Me out on the veranda of our hotel

Finally got on the net for a bit and booked our flights from Copenhagen to Oslo, and the return train from Oslo to Bergen. Accommodation bookings still to go...

Had a bit of a walk around town but decided we were a bit museumed out, so skipped that and just had some lunch, and Carla has gone shopping for some essential cold weather stuff.

We woke early at around 6:30 (it isn´t getting light until 7:30ish), packed and jumped in the car and started driving towards Madrid. We stopped along the way for some breakfast, and eventually came to a standstill in the Madrid traffic gridlock around 2pm.

After some u turns and back and forwards driving we found the station where we needed to drop the car off later, and after a lot of trying, the hotel. Carla ran upstairs to check us in, while I tried to find a spot to stop around the block. Amazingly found one in a loading zone, which seemed much better than the double-double parking some people were doing in the no-stopping zones. We have seen a lot of cars being towed, so it is amazing people don´t care more. Dropped off the bags, and then navigated our way back to the train station to drop off the car.

A quiet evening exploring our local area which is a bit of a mix of the main streetness of George St and the slease of Kings Cross in Sydney.

Sierra Nevada ski resort

Lake on the road up to the Sierra Nevada

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A much shorter drive today though lots of olive groves.

A much harder time finding our way around. At the first tourist office we stopped at, he wanted to charge for a map which we felt just wasn´t on, so we had a go without it. The traffic was pretty crazy, pretty much as bad as Rome, just not as many streets of it. After driving up to the Alhambra and tacking the tunnel road out to the Sierra Nevarda we eventually found we were on a street that was in our very basic directions, and from there it wasn´t so bad.

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Almost ran out of petrol trying to push the little car a bit further than it wanted to go. Worked out ok in the end. The petrol is much cheaper here, than in Italy, (though still expensive), and this hire car seems to be a bit more economical too.

Magically found our accommodation on the second pass through the centre of town without a map. Excellent.

The Mezquita is pretty amazing, at its peak something like 40000 Muslims could worship in here, and it now has a Catholic Cathedral built in the middle of it.
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