Day 51 – 29 August 2023 – Barcelona to Madrid, Spain

An early start this morning as our tour group disperses with the four winds. We depart at 8.30am.  First stop at Barcelona Airport to drop off some travellers flying out home or other adventures plus Sonia & Norberto to fly home to Portugal. There are six of us that stay on the bus for the trip to Madrid with our new driver Antonio. The sun is out & the temperature slowly increases to 28C as we travel. There is not that much traffic & the roads are good, it is dual lane divided road all the way.

The scenery is mostly very dry & desert like, with the occasional green farming areas around the odd river. Most of the towns we pass are small, always with a church spire or two. There are monasteries or ruined castles on some of the hills. Closer to Madrid we drive through some large mountain ranges, but these are also mostly dry. We stop for lunch at a fuel station & cafeteria out in the middle of nowhere, we had toasted roll with tomato & Iberican ham, it was very tasty. We also had breaks for morning & afternoon tea at similar small roadside stops.

Barcelona to Madrid is around 630 kilometres & we got dropped off at our hotel at around 5.30pm, so it was 9 hours of travelling all up. After checking in & settling in to our room, a very nice 5 star hotel, we went for a short walk. Our hotel is not far from the one we stayed in last time we were in Madrid so we are familiar with the area. It is an embassy boulevard, we see beautiful big buildings with flags, security cameras on high walls & police outside guarding. The walk was very pleasant & we strolled along a leafy boulevard admiring some of the stately homes & buildings. It is light until late in Madrid & we got back around 9pm. A long, tiring, but good day.