Day 4. A day in Valencia

The Mercat Centrale in Valencia.
A good place for breakfast and to buy provisions.
The best chocolate croissant ever!

We got up early (assisted by  the jet lag) and headed down to Mercado Centrale. The building itself is lovely, with stained glass windows and a nicely decorated dome.

Here we had a very satisfactory breakfast of fresh chocolate croissants and good coffee and then bought some provisions for lunch.

Fresh food markets are always a wonderful introduction  to local food and this was no exception. I love seeing the different foods in different countries and regions.  Pan! Figs! Jamon! Quesos! On our way back to the apartment we didn't go past a bottle shop so we had an Albarino and a Ribiero del Duero to wash down the lunch.

Horchata - a traditional drink of Valencia.
Made from a local nut ground to a paste, with sugar added.
Served cold it is very refreshing.

The old part of Valencia has some very impressive large buildings, many built around plazas and small parks. Not much use of colour, but very solid building. A lot of the footpaths are red marble pavers which looks great. We stopped in at a Horchataria for a glass of Horchata.

The afternoon was spent sorting out  the rental bikes and mobile phone plus data plans.  I didn't have a very good feeling about Orange Bikes and our experience there was not great. It was all a problem and all very hard. The bikes themselves seemed to be OK but the customer service left a lot to be desired. Then on to Vodafone which was not much better. A LOT harder than in Dubai! The guy in the shop gave us a bum steer in the morning and it took research over lunch and phone calls to Vodafone support before we were able to sign up for what we wanted.

In the evening I had pre-booked dinner at La Sucursal restaurant. It is a tasting menu of around eight courses. Some really sensational dishes, a great balance, great fresh ingredients.

We seemed to get through cava and a couple of bottles of champagne with dinner. The restaurant had a lovely casual feel with good service. It was a lovely evening for the walk there and back as well.

All four of us were impressed by this Michelin-rated restaurant.

K&J: day 3 in Madrid

The night before we decided to walk less. We booked a tourist bus ride using hotel reception. Up early, walked to bus company about a block away. Their front door was locked but they buzzed us in. That shopping arcade in lane way must be tad unsafe - possibly cash on hand? The bus trip zigzagged around Madrid. Surprised how many bits we had already stumbled into or past on previous days. But still worth doing. Didn't take many photos - lousy from inside a moving bus! Stopped outside bull ring and Real Madrid CF stadium (contrasts between the arenas?) Rested up a bit after we got back. A cold drink on beautiful hotel balcony then caught Metro out towards where we wound up first night. Much faster when you plan it :-) Poured rain just after we sat down and ordered wine. Stopped soon enough, had some tapas. Metro home and another night early to bed.

Day 3. To Barcelona and down to Valencia

A very early start at Dubai but that's OK because our body clocks said it was much later. Dubai terminal 3 was the usual bustling throng although we sailed straight through luggage checkin, immigration and security. A nice breakfast at The Hub upstairs and we were on our way. The fed us more or less continuously on the plane and very good food it was. Once again the plane was a 777 which I prefer to the A380.

Barcelona airport was easy enough to deal with, minimal queues. We took the bus from the terminal around to the other terminal where the train station is, a suburban train into Barcelona Sants and then the Euromed train to Valencia.

Since the last time that we came along this coast (2003) the change was quite noticeable. A lot of development, mostly apartments, mostly ugly and many empty. A real disaster. It was a warm day and the Med looked very inviting, but I couldn't get them to stop the train for a swim :-(

It turned out that our Valencia accommodation was not ideal. A fair walk from Valencia Nord to collect the key, then a fair walk to the apartment, then a lift followed by a flight of stairs to the apartment. Most of the distance on cobblestones... a bit of a workout for suitcase wheels.  Once we got there it was OK but not great, so we cancelled our later stay and decided to find a hotel closer to the station for when we returned to Valencia.

K&J got in fairly late but we connected up OK and I even had a cold beer waiting for them :-}

Keith & Julie: day 2 in Madrid: we walked until it hurt, and then we walked some more

Started the day a good way: with a big sleep in followed by a nice hotel breakfast. You know that often hotel breakfasts are nothing like your classic cafe scrambled eggs n bacon with flat white - and Hotel Atlantico's breakfast is not a cafe breakfast but I enjoyed the Spanish mixture of foods. I only had one small pastry - how's that for will power! No barista but...

We strolled off towards Plaza de Espana, it was not yet hot outside, and then eventually onto the royal palace. 

At the palace, the Security folks said "no photos" in the most impressive rooms - the Throne Room was fantastic but no photos allowed??? There were signs in the armoury saying no photography but before then it was just uniformed security occasionally saying No. 

The armoury was interesting: to see the range of armour, swords and more. Some of the swords were very beautiful - if you can call a weapon designed to kill that...

I'd heard that men and horses now are taller & larger than hundreds of years ago - and the suits of armour for men and horses showed that. 

After the palace, we decided to find the railway station we are using on Sunday night, check out the left luggage arrangements and then head back to hotel. It took us a few hours to do all that - we walked to Plaza Royal, looked in Mercado de San Miguel for a place for a cool drink but it was a zoo! We sat outside and had a cold beer, rested for a while. 

We then walked down to the Atoche Renfe station and checked it out. By then Julie had blisters on her feet so we used the Metro to head back to hotel. 

Jules had a siesta nap, I mucked around with uploading photos, booked a guided half-day bus tour for tomorrow so that we get a fast intro to Madrid from the tourist guide (and also means Julie doesn't have as much walking)  - and we had a drink on 9th floor before heading out again. 

Took Metro to Sol to find the Latina area, and walked around to a couple of tapas places Julie found in Lonely Planet guide. One was closed/OOB and the other was a stand up bar - so we wandered back to a side lane we had past and settled there. I'm learning that some of the Spanish dishes are much larger than I'd expected - we did some damage to the Paella anyway! Had a Nice Alborino wine - you don't see that grape much in Australia. Ignored the O'Reilly's bar in the lane and headed back to Hotel via Metro again. 

That's all for now...

Day 2. Day trip to Abu Dhabi

We arrived without any great fuss at Dubai. Some delays getting through immigration, then again at the hotel waiting for our drive to turn up, but then it was off to Abu Dhabi for a day of sightseeing. Actually it is worth saying more about this. The delays at Dubai for passport control are really bad.  On both visits the queues were not physically long, they just went incredibly slowly. We spent MORE THAN AN HOUR in the queue. At 2am when you are tired this is enough to stretch the patience. In fact I will reconsider ever travelling through Dubai again.

Striking office building on the way to Abu Dhabi.
No problem with getting a window seat here

The drive from Dubai to Abu Dhabi is interesting. Not the same buzz of activity that there was in 2010, with many building sites standing idle. As you can see from the photo it was one of the better days in terms of visibility. The sky actually looked blue a bit :-)

Our main purpose for visiting Abu Dhabi was so that Christine could see the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque. I had been there before but this was the first visit for Christine. Our timing meant that we only had a short time to see the inside but it was long enough, then a good look at the exterior with all that marble and inlay and tile work.

After that we headed down to the Corniche and had lunch overlooking the water followed by a visit to the Palace Hotel which I didn't enjoy at all. Ugly. Pretentious. Luxury for its own sake.

Then back to our hotel in Dubai for a beer, a swim in the pool, a quick dinner, online checkin for the morning's flight and a sleep.

Keith & Julie: First full day in Madrid about to start

Yesterday we were dropped off at Hotel Alantico which is right on one of main roads in city. We showered and then found a Vodafone shop and got SIM cards. Tried to get the data plan I remembered from my research but the shop didn't seem to have same thing.
Think pickpocket might have opened my trousers back pocket when crossing road - I deliberately had nothing in it so no problem.
Found nearby supermarket and bought sparkling water to have in room.
After returning to hotel, we went up to 9th floor where there is outdoor areas (and indoor rooms) with bar service!
The cold beer served with frosty glass went down so well we did that twice :-)
Then we wandered off into some streets just looking around. The city has a lot of "life" in the smaller streets and lanes.
There are many squares/plazas that locals hang out in after a hot day. Children playing, young folks hanging, oldies talking - in a shared space open to the sky.
Got to  Cabriera bar, saw empty table, grabbed it. Too much food for us but great spot for people watching!
Bit lost by time we left there but we found our way back to hotel easy enough.
Hotel has free wireless so I can do most big things there. Found that 22189 is supposed to be Vodafone customer service speaking English so will call them today to check data plan.

Dome above our 9th floor  drinks

Day 1. Leaving on a jet plane

Goodbye rainy Canberra Airport. Not a bad day to be leaving town... we were packed and to the airport in plenty of time so there was time to relax and to look forward to some warmer weather!


The flight from Canberra to Sydney was delayed and then we spent a fair time in a holding pattern out near Warragamba Dam because only the E-W runway was in use due to the strong westerly, which also made for a bumpy flight. Everything in Sydney went smoothly and we weren't rushed despite arriving 40 minutes later than scheduled.

Onto Emirates, a 777-300 and an uneventful flight to Bangkok. A variation from QANTAS in that we didn't have to disembark for the refuelling stop. Dinner was pretty good, a beef stew washed down with a Ventoux Controlle. Not bad.