Nothing wrong with the tapas

Our train to Madrid was delayed by 50 minutes.  Mirinda was stunned. She kept repeating it, asking me to clarify. “Five, Oh?” She said incredulously. Eventually, convinced, she left me with the luggage and went for a walk.

Train 7: Avignon centre to Avignon tgv

We met a very enthusiastic man on the six minute suburban train to the TGV station. He was a cook for the rich and famous for around ten years, mostly catering on Saudi planes for royalty.

In his photographs, the interiors of the planes looked like restaurants with armchairs wide enough for a camel.

In one of those unusual occurrences, he showed us photos of some of the people he fed, as well as the food and the Swiss air force escort jets these self important twats feel they need. It’s interesting how one person’s life is more valuable than anothers, isn’t it? Just because they have pockets full of petrol. Sickening.

Anyway, he was very jolly and on his way to Marseilles. His mother lives in Avignon, and he was her personal chef, though, he explained, she always cooks for his brother.

The delay to the Madrid train almost made us miss it, though we never found out the cause. The indicator board at the station didn’t announce anything meaningful (unless you were going to Paris) so I went and asked a uniformed chap. He said to wait.

Then, two minutes after Mirinda left to go for another walk, the man returned and calmly said we should go now. I rang Mirinda to hurry back. Which she did. Thankfully, she had her phone off mute. Strange, I know.

There followed another jog to the opposite end of the train because, of course, our carriage was the furtherest away it could possibly be. We made it with about 60 second to spare. Which is ironic when it was already 50 minutes late.

Train 8: Avignon tgv to Madrid Atocha

Another long, comfortable journey, stopping in such delightful places as Montpelier, Narbonne and Barcelona. There was also a long detailed view of a place called Sète which looked best avoided.

Actually, I’m being a bit harsh. The area around the station was pretty awful, the town, on the other hand, sounds quite interesting.

The most interesting thing that happened on the train however, was the woman with the exploding water bottle. I don’t know what she had in it, but it woke everyone up in the carriage when she opened the lid.

The landscape we passed through, was anything but dull. We passed salt flats, flamingos standing one legged in the middle of them, piles of salt, the Mediterranean not far away, glinting in the sun. And snow capped mountains.

And, yes, the weather was lovely.

Okay, a plane may be quicker but travelling by train is far more interesting, more scenic, such a better way. Knowing how far you have gone beats rushing to your destination every time.

When crossing into Spain, we didn’t so much cross the border as go through it. As the Pyrenees loomed up in front of the train, it plunged into a very long tunnel.

At the first Spanish stop, the train filled up. We were sitting in two better seats, but had to move. The ticket inspector woman told us to. Our real seats were facing the wrong way and the window was a bit obscured, so Mirinda wasn’t happy, but we had managed good seats for half the journey.

Then, we arrived in Madrid.

It’s fair to say that we weren’t that keen the first time we visited Madrid. Mirinda had forgotten, but I read her the entry of our first day in the city, and she agreed that it wasn’t the best introduction to Spain. Well, not so much this time.

Mind you, the station, which resembled a very busy airport, was a bit distracting. It took us a while to find the way out, wandering around like lost Australian merinos for a bit, bleating at everything. And everyone. Still, eventually we found the very full taxi rank and were taken away by the nicest driver in Madrid.

He was actually born in France, where he lived until he was 15. His French is better than his Spanish and his English was pretty good. He was very entertaining, telling us about his life. He also told us we were staying in the District of the Letters, a literary quarter much frequented by the cool hipsters. Clearly we’ll fit right in.

He also said the rain was unusual. Yes, of course, it was raining. This also happened the first time we visited Madrid. He said that Madrid only managed about 20 days of rain a year so, I guess, we’ve just been unlucky.

After dropping our stuff off at the flat – a lovely flat by the way – we ventured out onto the street. The world was buzzing around us, people were heading out for fun, the rain was stopping, it was great. I took a photo, but there were only a few people in it. But, believe me, there were lots more just outside the area of the lens.

We wandered around for a bit before finding an excellent tapas bar where we partook of various small plates of joy and a couple of riojas for Mirinda and beer for me.

The place was called Taberna el Sur and was marvellous. And not just the food and drink, the staff, as well, were very welcoming.

Obviously, we finished the evening with a gelato (I had carrot cake flavour) before heading back to the flat for some much-needed sleep. Tomorrow we visit the Prado.

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