Day 41 – 19 August 2023- Madrid Day 2

A late, really good breakfast, everything you could want & really good quality. Still no luggage so we decided to go for a walk to a nearby shopping mall to buy some cool clothes. My goodness, this is the high end of town, we walk past Gucci, Versace, Prada & Armani, the mall is full of these & more high end shops. They don’t have anything that we need so we continue walking past some amazing looking buildings, including some embassies. Our motel is in the embassy area, the US Embassy is only about 100 metres from our motel & surrounded by security police.

We are hot & disappointed, we walk down some side ally to get out of the heat & get back to the Hotel.  Eventually we found a shop & bought a new cotton shirt each, we wear the new shirts out of the shop as the shirts we had on were far too hot. We walk a long way & explore a little more of this part of Madrid, it is a beautiful city.

Back to the hotel & a bite to eat then we have a look at the rooftop infinity pool, we can’t use this as we have no luggage & hence no swimming costumes. We go for another walk in the 40 degree C heat exploring a little more then come back for a shower before meeting our tour group at 6.30 pm. There are only a total of 17 on this tour so it will be a small group & should be more pleasant. At 7 pm we head out for a welcome dinner & our Tour Director, Sonia, explains some of the sights we pass by on the way to dinner.  The restaurant is behind Parliament House so the bus has to drop us off a little way from the restaurant & we walk the rest. The sun is still up & it is very hot walking.

The restaurant is nice & the food is good as we sit & chat getting to know each other better. Sonia is very good & has offered to chase our luggage for us. After a very pleasant Spanish meal it is a quicker walk back past the Parliament House to the bus & then a pleasant drive back to our hotel.

Still no luggage.