Last whole day in Spain

A lovely peaceful day, fine weather - cool in morning and supposedly got into late 20s or 30s by late afternoon, but dry heat and easy to live with…then beautiful cool again when the sun goes down. So we met at 8.30 and I insisted that we went to the churros and chocolate place Amr and I loved to go to, just down the road. So we indulged in freshly made churros, dark thick molten chocolate, coffee and freshly squeezed OJ. Then a small wander from Sol up to Plaza Santa Ana and around there till R and R had to meet guides for a tour of the city to many good spots that I didn’t show them already…so during that time I meandered round favourite places - Plaza Mayor, San Miguel Mercado, such a lovely city…no roads are at right angles or on a grid, so I find I often lose my sense of direction…but you can always find yourself back (even if going 180° in the wrong direction as I did once today)…the centre where all the tourists congregate is largely pedestrian - the poor cars that try to pass have a hard time, and mainly just delivery vans and taxis. I don’t know another big capital city that has so much pedestrian activity.

We met up at about 1 near the royal palace, and I marched them back to another place Amr and I loved, and where I went with Cathy - La Casa del Abuelo - just a little place that does amazing garlic prawns, and it also did chiperones, and croquettas and a tomato salad!!! So we feasted there very happily, and amazingly went to the ice cream shop on Sol. Then Rachel suggested we go up to a good lookout point that they’d learned about on their tour. She knew the building, an ugly modern one that turned out to be a Corte Ingles store…so we went up to the 9th floor which was also a wonderful food hall, and you could go out to the verandah sort or area and look out at the marvellous view over the city and not buy a thing…but you get caught in of course and we sat and had a peppermint tea- Rich had coffee. Lovely relax up there. The store was just about on the Gran Via so I suggested we walk down admiring the wonderful buildings, to the Plaza de España which the tour hadn’t taken them to…so we ended up walking in the parks and gardens there, and behind the grounds of the Royal Palace where we found a bench in the shade…that was sort of the heat of the day at almost 7!

We had a little downtime after all these activities and met again and wandered looking for somewhere to have a drink, and maybe a bite to eat…wherever we looked that seemed nice was all full on the outside tables…but as we were returning we tried our “local” where we went last night (but inside) as we spied an outside table, so we were very happy…I just had a tostada with smoked salmon and a vino tinto (a Rioja Tempranillo crianza Paul), but Rach and I did have flan also! And I had a Baileys. This was the last night.

So now sorted out what I’ll wear tomorrow, packed everything else in the bag…random washing loose…and have ordered a taxi for 8.15. All organised, and now bed.

Am putting in the photos 2 videos - one on plaza mayor in Burgos, and one in Madrid.Baca lagi