May 9, 2018: Madrid's Gardens and Squares
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Today, Fred and I are heading home (at long last); we will be embarking on the last leg of what has turned out to be trip around the world that began over five weeks ago. On this page, I just want to tell you a bit about the condo we stayed in here in Madrid and then just a bit about our trip home.

Our Condo in Madrid

I found the condo we stayed in here in Madrid on the Internet, on one of those sites where people rent out residences they are not using. In this case, a young man had owned and lived in this condo but when he moved elsewhere in Madrid, he decided to keep it and rent it out- for short or long term stays. We did all our negotiations over the Internet, and when Fred and I arrived in Madrid, we followed his directions and met him at the condo building to get keys and the information we needed about the condo.

The building was typical of other buildings in other cities in Europe. Since most buildings have common walls, and are arranged in rows along the streets, it would seem that unless you are on the front or back you wouldn't have a window. This building, as you can see, solves that problem loke others do- by having one or more atriums in the center of the building, and all the units have windows that either open to the front or back or onto the atrium (like ours did).

The front door to the building is on Calle Amparo, where Cipri Arquero met us. Entering through that door, one walks past the mail boxes and the set of stairs that serves the apartments in the front half of the building, and then out into the atrium. As you can see in that picture, the atrium is chock full of windows, and its big enough so that a lot of light filters down and into the apartments. The same had been true in Rome, Barcelona, and some other places where we've stayed in non-hotel spaces.

To get to our condo, which was in the back half of the building, we continued across the tiled atrium and through another door that led to the stairway that served the back half of the building. We took the stairway up to the third floor. The door to our condo is up on the landing behind me, at left in the picture.

The inside of the condo was quite comfortable. Just on our left as we entered was the fully-equipped bath (that even had heated towel racks). Past that, one comes into the living space. Here are the two pictures I took of that space:

Kitchen and Dining The kitchen was fully-equipped; there was even a clothes washer/dryer. There was a window between the kitchen and the dining table. (The bathroom is behind the kitchen; the front door is at the left.)

Living Room The other end of the room was the living area. There was a couch and coffee table, a TV and DVD player, and a few books and games in a little cabinet. For all the time we spent in the room, it was quite comfortable.)

Bedroom One

(Picture at left) The condo had two small bedrooms, both reached via a hallway at the end of the living room. This bedroom was the first one on the left. It had a small window out to the atrium.       (Picture at right) This was the larger of the two bedrooms, and the one we used. It was at the end of the short hall, and it, too, had a window out to the atrium.

Master Bedroom

As I said, the condo was not very big, but it was plenty big enough for a few days or a week's stay in Madrid- again considering that you'd probably be out most of the time. It was also very conveniently-located about six blocks from the train station and two blocks to a Metro station. We enjoyed it very much, and if we return to Madrid I will definitely contact Cipri again.

The Trip Home

Our taxi picked us up right on schedule about 7AM on our departure day. We dropped Cipri's keys in his mailbox and hopped in the cab for our 40-minute ride to the airport. The ride took as long as it did mostly because we were in early morning weekday rush hour traffic most of the way. Out driver was fairly talkative, though, and so the trip went quickly.

The airport was busy, and we had to stand in the check-in line for almost half an hour before we could check our bags and head over to security. That didn't take too long, and soon we on what seemed like a neverending down escalator to the train that would take us out to the gates in the middle of the field. The gate area of this relatively new airport was pretty neat; I believe there were three or four buildings like this one:

The Gate Area for Our Flight

Our flight boarded right on time, and we left right on time about 1030 in the morning. Ten hours later we were arriving in the Dallas area. Our friends, Al and Kathy Hirschler, picked us up at the airport and we were home in midafternoon (Dallas time, of course).

Postscript

We arrived back home 37 days after we left. And this has been an amazing trip- another in a long string of them that we have taken since we were both retired. I think that the high points of the trip, at least for me were (1) visiting Seoul, which brought back so many memories from 1969-1970 when I was stationed there, (2) visiting Thailand, and most particularly the amazing islands north of Phuket, (3) visiting India, and getting a chance to see a Third World country in the middle of transforming itself into a Second World one, (4) seeing the amazing city of Dubai, (5) visiting the Red Rose City of Petra and learning more about the ancient history of that part of the Middle East, and (6) visiting, finally, Jerusalem, someplace I had always wanted to see but had begun to think that I never would.

The cruise itself was not the best I have taken; that honor belongs to the four weeks we spent from Fort Lauderdale to Rome and then around the Mediterranean. The Mariner of the Seas was certainly showing her age, and I thought the facilities and offerings for those of us not in an elite status group on Royal Caribbean were way below par.

But Fred and I got a chance to see some parts of the world and some individual sights that were "bucket list" items, and we were happy that Greg had suggested this cruise originally.

You can use the links below to continue to another photo album page.

	May 9, 2018: Madrid's Gardens and Squares
	Return to the Index for Our Visit to Madrid