A trip to Seville: day 2: Madrid to Seville

Day two starts with me going down to the lobby for breakfast, which doesn't work well, as breakfast is at the top on the sixth floor. But with that little error corrected I have the usual sort of buffet you expect in a 4* hotel, including lots of coffee and orange juice and. this being Spain, little bits of dried ham. After, after some internetting, it is time for a run: I go West, down the hill I didn't know was there, over the river, and into the Casa de Campo; see GPS trace. Despite that being a 12 km run I didn't get all that far into the Campo. A quick shower and pack and check out: time for the Prado.

Happily all is walkable so I trundle off; my bag isn't heavy and I hang my coat off it and keep to the shade and it's pleasant. At the Prado, there's a queue for tickets which I stand in for a bit before a functionary says go to the far end so we do and there's no queue. What am I to look at? First up is Goya's "black paintings" which are pretty weird but well worth seeing; "Saturn eating his son" is dead famous. There's a lot of other stuff there of course: the 2nd and 3rd of May for example. After more than an hour I break for the cafe which is a glassed-in courtyard at the back. Then another hour of pix, disappointingly I don't find the Bosch which I was expecting.

To the train station. I have an hour free so get coffee, juice and a goats-cheese sandwich on decent bread. The train goes from the first floor, it turns out that the whole "old station" has been turned into a jungle / boutiques, and the new station built off the back. And they have stupid security - why on Earth would you scan baggages for internal travel? Sigh.



Train is swish and new; Eurostar-like. And not at all full. Countryside between Madrid and Cordoba is quite empty: few signs of habitation, mostly olives or oaks spaced with pasture, gentle hills. From Cordoba to Seville more habited and farmed. Cruise into Seville a little early; I walk from station to hotel Barcello and am just getting confused by reception when Dan turns up; it turns out I'm Angela, so to speak. Anyway I have a room and we wander off to the rowing centre which is very close, roughly as the VIII that is out, comes in. Thence dinner in the residence by the rowing centre: basic-but-plentiful rather like last year. After dinner to the Barcello for drinks and then, for me at least, bed; for the young folk, a walk into town for the nearest bar.