Travel day - Barcelona to Segovia

Why do travel days have to be so difficult?!! Our train was departing at noon so I allowed ample time for us non-morning people to get there. I didn’t dare suggest that we walk to the train station so I arranged a taxi fully aware that the driver was going to rip me off. And he did and I fought back, just on principle, and still lost $5 on the deal before I decided it just wasn’t worth the aggravation.

We boarded our AVE train and in just 3 hours at a speed of 300 km we arrived in Madrid (Atoche station). The speed is posted on a screen with a map and I tried not to look at it! We no sooner arrived in Madrid when John discovered he had left his e-reader on the train. I ran around that huge train station trying to find someone who could help me get back on the train to retrieve the e-reader and had no luck. I was told to come back when the lost and found was open. We then had to take the Metro to another train station (Chamartin) in order to board our train to Segovia, 100 km north of Madrid. When we arrived in Segovia, we discovered that the train station was 11 km outside of town, which surprised me because usually they are in the centre of town. John wanted to take a taxi but I only had enough euros to take the public bus, which was fine with me.

It was raining when we got to the city centre. We then learned that there was a huge celebration across Spain, called Three Kings Day, which is equivalent to our Christmas Day. The narrow cobble-stoned streets were packed with people and we had to pull our luggage uphill nearly 2 km as no vehicles were allowed within the old walled city. John grumbled the whole way but the people around us were so joyous that it was infectious. Our hotel, Exe Casa de Los Linages, was once an old castle. We were assigned the nicest room on the 6th floor, except the elevator only went to the 5th floor. At this point John was struggling and a nice young man offered to carry his luggage up the flight of stairs. John declined the offer but I intervened and the luggage was hoisted up the steps in seconds. Now John was really feeling old because earlier in the week a young man offered him his seat on the Metro! So you can see why it is imperative to pack light when travelling in Europe!

We ended our eventful day with a nice meal at a local restaurant where no one spoke English and the menus were in Spanish. We gambled on a 3 course dinner that is typical in Segovia. Fortunately, I was served some unknown species of fish and John had steak. The cost was $25 per person and that included a full bottle of wine, which we really needed!!Read more