Plaza de Espana, Madrid

Quite sad to say goodbye to Valencia. First time here and absolutely loved it! Also loved our big apartment on one of the big wide street with trees and walkway in the middle of it. The city is vibrant and easy to navigate with lots of beautiful architecture and green spaces. And the old town is a delight.

We walked down the road to our train station to catch the high speed electric train to Madrid Chamartin, then metro to Principe Pio where we had 3 hours to kill before we got the train to Avila our next stop for 4 nights. Principe Pio is a short walk to the Royal Palace or Plaza de Espana so we chose the short walk to there after getting some lunch in a nearby restaurant. Plaza de Espana has been recently renovated and it’s gorgeous. It’s famous for the large statue of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza with Cervantes sitting behind. We sat and enjoyed the sunshine and people watched .

Train journey to Avila took 1.5 hours and it sits higher up so we felt the cooler air when we got off the train. Twenty min walk to our hotel which is in the walls of the old town. The hotel is gorgeous and our room big with an amazing huge shower. It’s been recently renovated and is built into the old walls. First of our trip in a hotel - chilling out at the end of it. Wellllll, almost….. we have a trip in the train to Salamanca planned for Monday. Sunday we will explore Avila and Tuesday somewhere I can’t recall the name of.