Mike and Carla are Globetrotting... 2 people, 1 van, 5 countries (+2 try-hards), 5 weeks...

We skipped Murcia in favour of heading inland to see Madrid, but before leaving the coast we headed south to visit Tarragona as recommended. Interesting Roman ruins, but after only half an hour of driving, we were still way to cold to get out and walk around.

Valencia was another story. We stumbled upon free street parking right next to the old town (only because it was a Sunday) and were almost immediately captivated by the main train station.

Wow. I've always liked old train stations, they have so much character, but this one was truly amazing.

(This is the ticket office!)

We ducked along to the other Lonely Planet-recommended sights. Being a Sunday, the central Mercado was closed, but there was a rambling outdoor market in progress, where I tried to convince Mike to replace his old wallet (you should see it!), but he's holding onto it like a child with a blankie. From there we crossed the road into the 15^th century Lonja, then a Valencian commodity exchange, which (almost) rivalled the wow-factor of the train station, with its halls full of tall twisting columns in and intricate ceilings.

We returned down the street we had walked up, and went back past a confusing throng of what seemed to be boys and dads.

This second time, we realised it was a card swap-meet. We hadn't seen anything like it before. There didn't seem to be any money changing hands, but these people looked serious! From there we ducked around the corner to see the cathedral, but decided we had seen enough of those, so we set off, 3 hours later, Madrid bound.

Want to hear about more circles? Services were almost non-existent, so we left the motorway just before Madrid in the hope of finding a campsite in Arganda, just out of the city.. Pffft. Circles... Discounted hotel possiblities.... More circles, around Madrid. Burger King for dinner (ugh) in a dodgy part of town and more circles. We finally found a services on a toll road, parked between two trucks to block out the light, and spent the night. And froze. The sleeping bag went on top, but even then...

In spite of promising ourselves we would get up early the next morning and hit Madrid, it was way too cold to even think about getting up before the sun. Sunrise is so late here, we just stayed huddled in bed until the warm golden glow promised us a bit of comfort. Time in Madrid was ticking away, but what can you do? When we finally did venture out, we flicked back around on the motorway and drove straight into the city.

Now, I'm not sure if it's become apparent yet, but we're doing this the old-fashioned way...with maps, printed on paper (a sat-nav just wouldn't suit Ruby). The European road atlas I carry for work has basic maps for some of Europe's major cities, 2 cities squeezed onto an A4 page. So this is often what we were using to find our way. Hence the circles.

No circles on this morning in Madrid, however. We found our way straight to the underground public parking in the city centre, right under the Plaza Mayor (and this time we had an acceptable height clearance). We nabbed the last parking spot on our height clearance level (I'm trying to decide if the close call with the pillar was a fluke or Mike's 'supreme skill').

Our first stop was, of course, McDonald's. We're finding the free wifi (pron: weefee) here invaluable, but noticed anyway throughout the day that all the tobacco/news-stands had free wifi too, so you could just sit in a square with one of these stands, and you're in cyberspace!

We were trying to find accommodation for that night, but having a car is like caring for a baby, you have to consider it all the time, and you can't just leave it anywhere. So when booking a hotel, we're looking for a good price and parking. But, that was all too hard in Madrid, so we figured we could try and see what we could of the city today, and think about tonight when it came. See? Winging it.

Our 'bible', the Lonely Planet, suggested we start at Plaza Mayor, so it was back in that direction we went. We passed through Plaza Mayor stopping to admire the frescoes of the 17^th century royal bakery.

Interestingly, and a bit disturbingly, this was one of the sites that saw the Spanish Inquisition in progress. Exiting the square, our next priority was breakfast. We turned a corner and the Mercado was right in front of us. Barcelona's market was great for breakfast so we gave this one a try. Hmmm. If we wanted wine for brekky, this was the place to come. Wine and olives were everywhere. We found a tiny stall in the middle selling small savoury pastries. We went for these, and they ended up costing us about €13, then she shortchanged us €2. Well, she shortchanged Mike €2, I was off fighting everyone else for a couple of stools (with the help of two funny old ladies) while holding onto the empty table I already had.

As we left, I tried an olive, which cost Mike a euro (it was a big olive!), and we followed 'the book' to another square, Plaza de la Villa. We took the obligatory photos, but weren't very impressed (except for all the cops milling around!). Probably the biggest thing to see in Madrid is the Palacio Real. We saw it, through the wrought iron gates.

Any thoughts we entertained of going in were squashed by the '10km long' queue.

We did go into the Catedral next door, which was amazing. I've never seen one with so much colour!

We walked around the palace's Japanese gardens (not so Japanese, methinks). In this peaceful, serene setting Mike thought I needed brightening up, so he threw me over his shoulder and ran around in circles.

I don't know if the people watching laughed because they thought it was funny or out of a nervous kind of fear. It worked on me though. On our way to the next place to see, we were stopped in our tracks by a “You kids speak any English?”.

We had a split second to consider not answering, but took the plunge. Ha!

We learnt about the old man's home in Indianapolis, and how long ago he came back from the Vietnam war and how he's seen all the parks in “this here city” (he hadn't seen the biggest one though, we had to give him directions to it). My favourite part was when he told Mike he looks about the age of his kids. Mike, bless him, asked how old they were. 44 years old is the oldest, blah blah, and the youngest is 35. I did my best to keep a straight face. We sent him off to the Catedral (he was determined it was the palace and almost wouldn't go when we told him it was an optional €1 donation) and we got out of there in a hurry.

We went back through the Plaza del Sol to the Parque del Buen Retiro (the big park we told the old man about) and chilled out on the lawn for a while. Mike doesn't normally put something out there that he really wants to see, happy to go with the flow, but he read in 'the book' that somewhere in this park there is a statue of the fallen angel, Lucifer, so that moved up to the next spot on our list. Apparently there are only a few statues of the Devil in the world, so this was a must-see.

It was getting late, but we had almost seen everything on our list. It was a short walk to my last place, the Caixa Forum, which was a disappointing anti-climax, and we turned back to the Latin Quarter for some tapas.

At one point, we rounded a corner and found ourselves in yet another square. I was captivated by this hotel (loved the purple lights!)...

...while behind me, Mike was admiring this...

Once in the Latin Quarter, we stopped for a drink at a really cool bar, Lamiak (on Cava Baja if anyone wants to go) with heaps of atmosphere.

The American-accented bartender directed us to his favourite tapas place 10 minutes away. We found it, a non-descript sort of place that didn't really invite in the tourist looking for “authentic”, but we really enjoyed it, plus the jug of free sangria that came with our food :)

From there it was straight back to Ruby (via a bit of magical street theatre), manoeuvre out of the bay (€26 parking fee) and drive, drive, drive.

After a couple of hours we pulled into a picnic bay shielded from the road by trees and such. There were a few cars there already, but we pulled over and turned out the lights. What a strange night. It was like it was straight out of a movie. There were shenanigans and strange goings-on, which we watched from our bed. One car would move up or down the bay, pull over and turn off the lights. 10 minutes later he would do it again, and park near some other car. And again. It was really weird, and really freaky. I had been to the bathroom as soon as we stopped, and when I got back to the bay, this guy was just standing there, near our car, in the shadows. Mike had just seen him too, and I made him promise he was coming with me next time. We almost moved on, but it was really late, and they took off after a while anyway. It left us pretty uneasy. However, we woke to sunshine (albeit cold), everything was as it should be, and we continued on our way. Direction: Cordoba.