28th March: Madrid to Sigüenza

Despite having spent two nights in Madrid, there has been little time and opportunity to see much of this vast city.  Been staying near the Madrid Chamartin train station which simplifies the travelling, but Chamartin is not near anything too much, essentially a business district.  Staying at the Hotel Weare Chamartin, which is convenient and fine, literally across a covered walkway from the train station.  The station is impressive, has a ground floor lobby level with many shops and then three levels below each with train lines going in all sorts of directions.

 

Our train to Sigüenza was booked for later afternoon so we had the morning free to go into Madrid centre.  Took the metro underground to Sol station and managed to not get lost.  I spent a couple of hours in the Prado museum (hundreds of pre-1900 paintings from many old masters), saw Raphael, Velasquez, Van Dyk, Rembrandt, Goya, El Bosco (Bosch) etc.  So many famous pictures, any one of which would have commanded a special exhibition at the Western Australian gallery.  Martha enjoyed a couple of hours wandering around and expertly navigating the tourist map, dodging street protest marches, gazing at the old buildings and occasionally looking for a bargain.

 

Train trip to Sigüenza was pleasant.  The train was a regional train and less formal than the train to Santiago as the seats were not allocated, and had no dining car etc.  I think the train left Chamartin with 10 people on it, though picked up some more later.  We had the whole carriage to ourselves.

 

Travelling by train, and bus, is relaxing and gives chance to see the scenery.  Realising that at least two of our trips (Madrid to Santiago, Madrid to Sigüenza) were return trips covering the same ground, I have formulated a very clever idea to avoid seeing the same scenery both ways.  All I need to do is to sit on the left side of the train going out to Sigüenza and then on the right hand side on the return.  That should do it ;-)