June 24, 2018

I was sad to be leaving Valencia- and more particularly our friends, Silvia and Pedro. They are excellent hosts, and made my short stay in their city and home a great experience. We visited places that we had not seen in our previous visit. We also went to Javea, a beach town where they are renovating an apartment.

Pedro came to the Joaquin Sorolla train station, to farewell me this morning. The train trip in this very fast train – which travel at a speed of 340 Kms per hour only takes 1.40 to the centre of Madrid.

I arrived at the Mexico hotel, a place here we had stayed on 3 previous occasions, after a short walk from the Atocha train station. The temperature is hovering around the mid 30s today, but feels hotter.

Afterwards I had a nice log lunch at the Museo del Jamón, – where they tell me they don’t have WIFI as they want they patrons to enjoy good conversations and also to both enjoy the meal and have it whilst it is hot.

Following lunch I walked around the Retiro park, went to the Thyssen-Bornemisza museum as I believed that on Saturday afternoon the entrance was free, not the case, as it is Mondays afternoons. Later walked to the Puerta del Sol- the km 0 of Spain, and also looked for more presents in El Corte Inglés, a well know Spanish store – similar to David Jones.

It took m a while to get back to the hotel, as I discovered other areas on the way back – got lost.

Spent some time on the internet looking at the opening times of the museums – and the free times.