Drinking cloud

Up early to get the 9:15 to Barcelona. There’s a pain au chocolat and a croissant waiting for us in the breakfast room, along with two mini baguettes. Coffee, hot chocolate and orange juice. We take the baguettes, two BabyBels, and a couple of garlic/herb cream cheese with us for lunch.

When we get to Gâre de Lyon it transpires that Rail Europe has printed the time in GMT, so we have an hour to kill. Kerry has her best cappuccino ever: “it’s just like drinking cloud.”

A long, dozy train journey to Barcelona. I get a couple of glasses of red to go with our baguette picnic and we watch France roll by: Valence, Montpellier, Perpignan. And then we’re at Barcelona-Sants as dusk falls.

A local supermarket provides crackers, pate, cheese, tomatoes and a sulphite free Navarra. But they don’t have a corkscrew - and Spanish wine doesn’t do screw tops. Not to worry - a corner shop down the street supplies one.

Outside the station is a strange metal sculpture/play park. Beneath it, surrounded by stone steps like an amphitheatre, are a couple of ponds. We sit on a bench between the trees. A girl is practicing her dance moves to music coming through her headphones. And there’s some very roughly executed graffiti: “Tourist go home!” (extra)

Madrid Atocha is huge and crazy busy. We stomp past queues waiting for taxis and march to our accommodation. The person waiting to let us in rings for the second time, wondering where we have got to.

It’s a large flat with multiple en-suite rooms. Quite modern and very clean, but one of the blinds doesn’t work, the water pipes are making strange noises, and there’s practically no sound insulation - which is an issue when some partygoers return at four in the morning. Oh well - it’s all character forming :)