Second Europe trip part 1 - leaving for Spain and touring in Madrid
By the time for my second trip, work became more hectic and irritating and I desperately wanted to get away from office for few days without anything or anyone to remind me of it's existence. I booked a tour package against my resolution, as I barely had time to sleep or eat, let alone plan a trip😫. I didn't inform anyone about my plans until I applied for leave - wanted this trip to be just for me. Luckily, we got mandatory leave policy in client location and mine was about to lapse which is why my leave got approved without much fuss😌.
I went to the website my friend suggested (she have high standards and I trust her judgement) and picked up single country tour to Spain. That way I thought I would have enough time to spend in one place without rushing around.
I was supposed to travel to Spain on a work assignment for my previous project but that stopped in processing due to project transition. I was extremely disappointed and couldn't find other work opportunity as Spanish projects are extremely low in our organization. Anyway, I was super excited to visit the place I prepared so much for and to test my Spanish speaking skills 😀.
Our flight is booked for Saturday early morning and the travellers were told to meet with the tour manager by 4 a.m at Heathrow airport. I planned to take midnight train which might reach couple of hours early. As trains in London won't operate between midnight till early morning, the alternative is to go by road, which takes longer and I won't be saving any time.
Even though there is enough time before I had to start, I planned to leave bit early from office on Friday evening as I didn't do any packing - I planned to pack light and leave enough space for shopping in Spain (I didn't even pack my swimsuit which was stupid thing to do as the hotels we stayed have lovely pools and I didn't get to use them 😒).
However, my teammates were in mood to party to blow off the steam and the festivities extended beyond 11 p.m. I reached my room at around 11:30, threw the clothes in the dryer into suitcase and started running to train station.
I managed to get into silver jubilee line to green park before 12 - probably the last service for that day.
From Green Park, I took Piccadilly line and reached Heathrow airport before 2 a.m. After couple of hours, other travellers in our group arrived and we were given the tickets. Due to some system issue, our boarding took quite long and my plans to shop in Heathrow duty free got shattered - I don't think they open that early anyway 😪.
After around 2 hours of flight, I was saying hola to España 😍.
In Madrid airport, rest of the tour group joined and we were taken to the hotel in a bus (which continued to be our mode of transport for the rest of the trip).
We got the room keys in two sets, second set coming an hour later to the first - luckily I got mine in the first. I settled in, got ready and went down to the restaurant to get some lunch. Then we set out to drive around the city.
Our hotel is quite close to the bull ring which initially seemed nice, but when our tour guide explained the story behind the bull fights, it no longer did😑.
Drive through Madrid might be a dream for architects. It seemed like no two buildings are similar and all styles of architecture around the world is integrated in one city.
Later in the evening we went to a park (don't remember the name - perks of tour packages 🙃).
From there we went to Gran via - our tour manager told us we will have the option to explore the popular and expensive shopping area the next day. With no mobile data, I couldn't find anything in the short time given to us to explore there. Our dinner was arranged in nearby Indian restaurant to the delight of the tour group. I wasn't too excited as I prefer trying local cuisine during my travels, however it was mentioned in the tour plan - so nothing unexpected🤐.
After much needed rest (I didn't sleep for almost 36 hrs by then😥), I woke up refreshed the next morning. That day was quite packed with sightseeing activities.
Our first stop was Prado museum - we were given about 2.5 hrs to visit the museum. The queue was quite big and few of us decided to skip it and explore nearby streets. First we went up from the museum to what seemed like a church. But it was closed and rest of it is residential area, so we went back down to the fountain area.
There are lots of fountains along the streets, the major ones are at the junction and dedicated to some God or Goddess with their statue.
Along the street, there were few souvenir stores, where I got some saffron. And from a pharmacy, got la Roche Posey BB cream+mascara kit along with Scholl party bellies. Those bellies are super handy for parties - they could be folded and would fit in a purse, ready to switch when the feet gets tired of heels 👠. They got 3 color options - black, gold and silver and I bought a pair in black (I ruined those at a pebble beach 😣, wish I picked one more pair)
Then we walked around some more time and had pallella for lunch 🙂.
Later, we gathered with rest of the group and went to the Royal palace museum.
It is very grand and the exteriors reminded me of the Jaipur palace 😄. There was a bit of a mishap with the audio guide situation and we ended up spending more than an hour waiting before getting in 😥.
We were not allowed to take pictures inside the museum so took few outside later.
Due to the delay in the museum, Gran via got cancelled 😵. After discussing few minutes we got split into 2 groups - few went to the football stadium and the rest to a market - mercado de San Miguel.
It wasn't very huge and even after roaming around the place, getting ice cream and checking out a super market we got quite some time left. I was extremely disappointed that I didn't get to explore Gran vía😫.
We had dinner at another Indian restaurant and went back to the hotel. After sometime, we went for an optional night tour.
It was peak summer and it didn't get dark until quite late. We were waiting at puerta de Alcalá for the lighting to start and our driver started getting nervous as they don't have permission to drive after midnight. Finally, they started the lighting and we spent only few minutes before heading to the next stop.
This was the same fountain we saw earlier that day. It looked magnificent in the night, so did the buildings.
Somehow, the roads in the night with the street lights on reminded me of Jaipur again😄.
Our next and last stop is some sort of monument of honor.
We reached at the hotel almost at midnight.
Next morning, after breakfast, we checked out of the hotel, loaded our bags into the coach as we would be heading off to Valencia in the afternoon. But, we had one more stop in Madrid - the retiro park.
Known as the Hyde Park of Madrid, it is quite huge.
We spread across, walking around the park and eating helados.
They have some amazing photos displayed in one area which have some significance, but I didn't get time to read about it 😑.
After retiro park, we started towards Valencia which is a story for another post. Hasta Luego!!!
I went to the website my friend suggested (she have high standards and I trust her judgement) and picked up single country tour to Spain. That way I thought I would have enough time to spend in one place without rushing around.
I was supposed to travel to Spain on a work assignment for my previous project but that stopped in processing due to project transition. I was extremely disappointed and couldn't find other work opportunity as Spanish projects are extremely low in our organization. Anyway, I was super excited to visit the place I prepared so much for and to test my Spanish speaking skills 😀.
Our flight is booked for Saturday early morning and the travellers were told to meet with the tour manager by 4 a.m at Heathrow airport. I planned to take midnight train which might reach couple of hours early. As trains in London won't operate between midnight till early morning, the alternative is to go by road, which takes longer and I won't be saving any time.
Even though there is enough time before I had to start, I planned to leave bit early from office on Friday evening as I didn't do any packing - I planned to pack light and leave enough space for shopping in Spain (I didn't even pack my swimsuit which was stupid thing to do as the hotels we stayed have lovely pools and I didn't get to use them 😒).
However, my teammates were in mood to party to blow off the steam and the festivities extended beyond 11 p.m. I reached my room at around 11:30, threw the clothes in the dryer into suitcase and started running to train station.
I managed to get into silver jubilee line to green park before 12 - probably the last service for that day.
From Green Park, I took Piccadilly line and reached Heathrow airport before 2 a.m. After couple of hours, other travellers in our group arrived and we were given the tickets. Due to some system issue, our boarding took quite long and my plans to shop in Heathrow duty free got shattered - I don't think they open that early anyway 😪.
After around 2 hours of flight, I was saying hola to España 😍.
In Madrid airport, rest of the tour group joined and we were taken to the hotel in a bus (which continued to be our mode of transport for the rest of the trip).
We got the room keys in two sets, second set coming an hour later to the first - luckily I got mine in the first. I settled in, got ready and went down to the restaurant to get some lunch. Then we set out to drive around the city.
Our hotel is quite close to the bull ring which initially seemed nice, but when our tour guide explained the story behind the bull fights, it no longer did😑.
Drive through Madrid might be a dream for architects. It seemed like no two buildings are similar and all styles of architecture around the world is integrated in one city.
Later in the evening we went to a park (don't remember the name - perks of tour packages 🙃).
From there we went to Gran via - our tour manager told us we will have the option to explore the popular and expensive shopping area the next day. With no mobile data, I couldn't find anything in the short time given to us to explore there. Our dinner was arranged in nearby Indian restaurant to the delight of the tour group. I wasn't too excited as I prefer trying local cuisine during my travels, however it was mentioned in the tour plan - so nothing unexpected🤐.
After much needed rest (I didn't sleep for almost 36 hrs by then😥), I woke up refreshed the next morning. That day was quite packed with sightseeing activities.
Our first stop was Prado museum - we were given about 2.5 hrs to visit the museum. The queue was quite big and few of us decided to skip it and explore nearby streets. First we went up from the museum to what seemed like a church. But it was closed and rest of it is residential area, so we went back down to the fountain area.
There are lots of fountains along the streets, the major ones are at the junction and dedicated to some God or Goddess with their statue.
Along the street, there were few souvenir stores, where I got some saffron. And from a pharmacy, got la Roche Posey BB cream+mascara kit along with Scholl party bellies. Those bellies are super handy for parties - they could be folded and would fit in a purse, ready to switch when the feet gets tired of heels 👠. They got 3 color options - black, gold and silver and I bought a pair in black (I ruined those at a pebble beach 😣, wish I picked one more pair)
Then we walked around some more time and had pallella for lunch 🙂.
Later, we gathered with rest of the group and went to the Royal palace museum.
It is very grand and the exteriors reminded me of the Jaipur palace 😄. There was a bit of a mishap with the audio guide situation and we ended up spending more than an hour waiting before getting in 😥.
We were not allowed to take pictures inside the museum so took few outside later.
Due to the delay in the museum, Gran via got cancelled 😵. After discussing few minutes we got split into 2 groups - few went to the football stadium and the rest to a market - mercado de San Miguel.
It wasn't very huge and even after roaming around the place, getting ice cream and checking out a super market we got quite some time left. I was extremely disappointed that I didn't get to explore Gran vía😫.
We had dinner at another Indian restaurant and went back to the hotel. After sometime, we went for an optional night tour.
It was peak summer and it didn't get dark until quite late. We were waiting at puerta de Alcalá for the lighting to start and our driver started getting nervous as they don't have permission to drive after midnight. Finally, they started the lighting and we spent only few minutes before heading to the next stop.
This was the same fountain we saw earlier that day. It looked magnificent in the night, so did the buildings.
Somehow, the roads in the night with the street lights on reminded me of Jaipur again😄.
Our next and last stop is some sort of monument of honor.
We reached at the hotel almost at midnight.
Next morning, after breakfast, we checked out of the hotel, loaded our bags into the coach as we would be heading off to Valencia in the afternoon. But, we had one more stop in Madrid - the retiro park.
Known as the Hyde Park of Madrid, it is quite huge.
We spread across, walking around the park and eating helados.
They have some amazing photos displayed in one area which have some significance, but I didn't get time to read about it 😑.
After retiro park, we started towards Valencia which is a story for another post. Hasta Luego!!!
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