K&J: Valencia

The Keogh genome has them up before sunrise and organising others. Didn't work out Monday morning - I heard Patrick moving around the apartment when it was still dark, but I rolled over and went back to sleep :-)
Eventually, at a more "polite" hour, we were all up and walking off to the central markets in Valencia. What a fantastic building with food stalls and a couple of places to have coffee. Wonderful fruits, vegetables, nuts, meats, oils, etc etc..

Julie and I ran out of time to do the tourist walkaround: we had to find the bicycle rental place, sort out payment, bike fitting for 4, adjust Vodafone prepaid phone data plan, wash some clothes,... Had lunch in apartment from food bought in markets, and some wine.... Then out after siesta to finish off the chores.
Then back to pack panniers and suitcases - things with us for the week, things in railway lockers.
Patrick had booked us into a fantastic restaurant for dinner : about 10 min walk away. Very pleasant evening!

We will be back in Valencia next Saturday, perhaps see more that weekend.

K&J: Last day in Madrid

This was the day that the Vuelta (which is THE bicycle race in Spain, in case you didn't know) finished in Madrid - and we were in Madrid. These crazy scrawny men had raced over mountains, sealed roads, paved (rough, awful, hard, painful) roads, ridden in 40+ deg heat, ridden in rain, and with awful winds - for 3 weeks to wind up in Madrid.... and Julie and I were there for that last stage.

We had a position just over 100m from the finishing line which meant I could take some photos - sorry, not sorted through them yet to see if there are any worth showing.

We started off the day happy because the main road outside our hotel was being blocked off to traffic because the Vuelta went down it (several laps) in the afternoon. Perhaps we could have stayed in hotel all day and watched them go past - but we had booked a spot near finishing line so we had to checkout by noon and spend the arvo at the finishing line. That meant hiding our bags somewhere - at the Madrid railway station where we would leaving from that night.
When we had breakfast, the road outside the hotel still had taxis on it so we went up to our room to pack with happy expectation we could still get taxi from front door of the hotel. By the time we came down with suitcases, the taxis were off the main road. We dragged them down a side road and after a few blocks saw a taxi coming up the road. He stopped and chatted to a few locals about the blocked roads, weather, poor football results, whatever - I have no idea what the conversations were because my Spanish is zippo and he wasn't close anyway. That all finished and the car moved closer towards us, so we asked him about taking us to Atoche railway station. After some mixed Spanish/Ingles about the roads being blocked and it was not easy, we managed to get across that we weren't worried about the time/effort/cost to get there.

We set off down tiny narrow back streets that RS Gilbert would be freaked out by (sorry, Canberra joke). Driver consulted a local once and altered directions to avoid a blocked road. We wound up with a lovely scenic tour past the Plaza Mayor, some impressive buildings, then around past the royal palace, down beside it to the river, across, and into the multi-lane underground freeway around the city, through some non-tourist suburb and then arrived at the Atoche station. Eur17 - happy with that, paid him 20 for his good humour and effort.

We then got the Metro back towards hotel and checked out with our "day bags". The Hotel Atlantico was a great location and easy for non-Spanish speakers. Will write a positive review for TripAdvisor.

Strolled down some of those back streets to south of Via Gran and wound up in the department store Corte Ingles (or somesuch name). Bought some new lightweight sandals (both of us) and then found  a little place for lunch. After that we eventually found our spot near the finishing line for the bike race and spent several hours waiting for all to happen. Got to hate the spanish fondness for smoking cigarettes when they have nothing else to do... This couple near us went through at least one and half packs in under 4 hours - yuck!!! So hard to get away from the stench.

The race: they did 10 laps in around the city and past us. So fast.... We saw Simon Clark I think..
The GreenEdge-Orica car was ignoring people waving at them!

When it was all over, we walked down to the train station. Got there early and had cold drinks. I tried a gin & tonic with Scheppes rosewater flavoured tonic water - worked for me, very refreshing!
Soon it was time to board the super fast train. We had lashed out and bought business class tickets - there were 2 other people in our carriage so it was nice and relaxed. Before long we were heading out of Madrid watching the info readout go from 60kph to 100kph to 150kph - and when we were finally out in the country we saw the magical 300kph+

At those speeds, the ride is a little bumpy - it is kinda awkward to use phone keyboard etc but Ok to read and watch the spanish language shows on the monitor (I didnt).

Service was nice - included hot meal dinner (I had fish) with tiny bottle of wine.
Arrived at Valencia before I realised.

We got off the train and then had to walk with our bags into the station - that is one long train - it took ages to pass the train. We boarded at one end in Madrid and had to walk to the other end in Valencia.
Got a taxi, who had trouble finding our tiny sidestreet destination in her GPS and maps. Eventually did but then she had taken us to the wrong end of what turned out to be a oneway street - and the street is named after a Portal. Turns out the Portal is like a hole in a city wall and too small for many cars anyway. The tiny lane (Carre?) was kinked, so we paid the taxi and dragged the bags along the lane and came around the corner to find someone who looked like Patrick Keogh walking towards us. It was Patrick - so we found the apartments and got in for the night.
Long day, too much time in sun and around smokers, but a good day on our vacation!!

Day 5. First, and very short, day on the bike.

Thanks to the work that Carlos did we had train tickets and authorisation for our bikes all sorted. We took a couple of trips to ferry our luggage and bikes down the hill to Valencia Nord. We decided to leave the bags in lockers at the station, but we didn't know that we would need exact change in coins to make the lockers work. We eventually got that sorted and had time for breakfast before the train.

The via verde goes over a viaduct.
As seen from the train window.

On the train we hung three bikes from the vertical hooks and just stacked the 4th one against them. The hooks have built-in security cables so it was all fairly comfortable. On the trip we were able to see the via verde for a large part of the route, including some of the high viaducts that we would ride over. We could aso spot our accommodation for several of the nights as the train rolled past.

Ready to roll.

The conductor was very solicitous to ensure that we got off successfully at the right stop and so we arrive at Torrijo del Campo without incident. From there it was a short and easy ride for the four of us to Monreal del Campo, through the town and out to the Hostal. As per the arrangements that I had made they were prepared for bike storage and we checked in. Over the course of the next couple of hours we were joined by Peter and Sandy and Jeff and Gerda who had stories to tell of their cycle touring.
The Hostal featured fairly ordinary truckstop food and drink but it was OK. The rooms were fine and there was no traffic noise to speak of.