We woke up to a beautiful morning in Madrid and took our time, not needing to be up early today. Once we were ready we left our bags at the hotel and headed out for the day. Our train to Malaga was booked for 4.30pm.
Just outside the hotel the hop on, hop off bus stopped and we jumped on and bought a ticket. We did tour 2 which took about an hour and we saw some of the sights. We finished tour 2 and went for some lunch in a cute café. We had rolls again, they are really nice, bigger than a dinner roll but not as big as our normal rolls. A nice size for a snack. Mine had freshly grilled chicken, tomato and bacon. It was delicious. We had a tea and coffee and my tea bag came in a cute little box. Gerard took a photo of it.
We got on the tour 1 bus and continued our exploration of Madrid. There are lots of things to see and do and it would have been nice to have longer there, but we had to move on. We got to the station and found out where we had to go, only to find I had booked the tickets for the wrong Sunday and we weren’t going until next week. Anyway, I bought new tickets for the 6.30pm train and got online and cancelled the ones I had booked and I will receive the refund to my card in the next couple of days. A bit inconvenient, but oh well it all turned out well.
We sat around the beautiful station until 6.00pm and boarded the train. The station was so clean and nice with a big garden in the centre. The train left on time and we travelled at 300kmh through the countryside for 2.5 hours. I know where all the olive trees for Spanish olive oil are, they are everywhere, millions of them, and little white square houses, small villages and windy country roads. There were some areas of crops as well and a mountain range, but it was interesting to see rural Spain.
We arrived in Malaga on time to another lovely, clean station and caught a taxi. We had spoken to the Hotel that morning and that had been their advice. They also said that the Street may be busy and to get the driver to drop us at the end of the Street and walk up the 100 metres to the Hotel. Well, we got there and it is Fair in Malaga for 8 days and it is like Festivale in Rio, people everywhere, music, noise, food, dancing etc. and we had to walk through the middle of it with our cases. What a crazy arrival, but we found our Hotel in the main street of the Fair area and we were told there are 7 days to go. Fortunately we can’t hear much from our room, but the Manager gave us a free drink card for gin and tonics and invited us to go to the rooftop bar after we had settled in.
In the feedback on the internet people had said how lovely and relaxing it was to have a drink on the rooftop bar and it was a great feature of the Hotel. Not this week! The bar was packed with people dancing, drinking and a DJ. You couldn’t move up there for gyrating bodies and drunks. We drank our G & Ts and went back to our room.
