It is gray and drizzly as Stella and I rise early. We've chosen a good day to spend mainly on the bus back to Madrid. We will be flying back to the States on the 6th and so this will give us 3 days to look around the city. Because there's a heavy cloud cover, it is still pretty dark as we leave the seminario menor, trekking down the long flights of stairs inside and out for the last time. We walk up the long hill toward the city, but instead of walking into the city itself, we wait along the ring street for the city bus to take us to the intercity bus station. We checked yesterday to see which line we need and where we need to wait. It's all very convenient - oh that it was this easy back home! All the cars have their headlights on in this early morning drizzle. A lot of buses come by, but they are different lines. At last, it is ours. We double check with the driver to be sure and also to be sure he knows where we want to get out so he can let us know. There aren't that many folks riding this bus. We get to see part of the city we haven't been in before.
The bus station is 1970's modern. We get our tickets for Madrid and find that we have about an hour's wait. The trip will take most all of the day. We find a little cafe to get something to eat. There are some other pilgrims, and there is a small youth group with a couple of adult chaperones. Been there and done that! After we have our fill of caffeine and pastries, we go out into the waiting area. We check out the little newstands, but there isn't much in there. So we just sit down to wait.
In some ways, this seems anticlimatic. It is as if our great adventure is already done and we are just killing time until we go home. We're interested in Madrid, but it isn't what we came for; that's already behind us. We're both a little sad I think, grieving in a way. The weather isn't helping.Finally, our bus comes. We get out on the road. Santiago is in the northwestern portion of Spain; Madrid is fairly central and hence, southeast of Santiago. I say this because a little while after we begin the journey, I realize that we have headed either west or north or both, out to beach communities, definitely NOT in the immediate direction of Madrid. Then, we begin to retrace back through towns that Stella and I have walked through, so we are basically heading eastward, but not southward! No wonder this is going to take hours! Part of the trip is on the autopista, that engineering marvel way high up in the air that does not appear to have adequate guard rails in the event we should require them! I try to look off in the distance and not downward. Ignorance can be bliss.
After several hours of riding, we pull into our very least favorite city, Ponferrada, to take a 45 minute break at their lovely (not) bus station. Like everyone else, we take advantage of the facilities, but there really isn't much else to do with that time. They sell a little bit of everything, including gardening plants! Eventually, we reboard the bus and continue on. From here, we seem to start heading southward at last. It is still a few hours before we begin hitting the outskirts of Madrid. We have no idea where we are coming into in Madrid, but it turns out to be this huge combination train and bus station with many, many levels. We meet this really nice, young couple who are very much in love and hanging all over each other. They are very conversive and tell us that we need to stay in Atocha. We don't know what that means, but we take their word for it. You would think that a large bus/train station would be more informative about the city with maps and all, but it is not. So Stella and I end up getting tickets for the local train into the Atocha station from a not terribly friendly or helpful train agent. When we get off in the Atocha station, there is a bell going off in the back of my head about the train station bombing in Madrid several years earlier. A friend of mine was leading another church's youth group here about the same time. I think this is the same station, but I'm not sure - I look around for some kind of indication, but I don't see anything. It is a very attractive station and seems rather new, though. We find our way outside, but that doesn't really help us much because we don't know where we are going except to find a hostal.
It looks like a rather toney section of the city - majestic, 19th century imperial looking buildings, big fences, a lot of flags here and there, boulevard kind of streets with lots of trees. We just start walking. It's late in the afternoon, really, early evening, so we need to find a place soon. We start winding our way up a major street and then realize we probably need a side street. As we turn off, I notice this "alive" building - the side of it has been planted like a garden!
We find a building advertising a hostal that doesn't look too bad and we ring the bell. We are admitted through the iron gate and go up. Looks fine and won't break our budget completely, the only down side is that we can have it for only one night as it is booked after tonight, so we will have to find another place tomorrow. But for tonight, we've got real beds again, with our own bath. And a TV! Not that we care much, except maybe for the World Cup. We get settled and cleaned up and head out to find a restaurant. Just down our little side street a block or two is the Cafe Azul - the Blue Cafe. 
It's tiny, but great food. I have the best salad I have had since arriving in Spain! Real lettuces and other greens, not that iceburg stuff. The wine is good, the appetizers are good. The decor is Spanish beach with lots of soothing blue. It's obviously an after-work crowd who comes here regularly. It's a fun little place with a lot of character. We stroll back up the cobblestone street to our hostal. Like any big city, there is always a siren or two coming from somewhere, but we don't feel unsafe. The streets are narrow, the old buildings closing in at 4 or 5 stories tall. Footsteps echo off all the hard surfaces, but people are out everywhere still. This is just going out time here.
No comments:
Post a Comment