Tuesday, March 25th
We went to the Palace Hotel for lunch today, at the invitation of E’s godson Pedro, an architect who works at the hotel. A large part of his job is involved with the ongoing renovation/restoration of the hotel, which was built in 1912. Two hotels were constructed in Madrid that year—the Palace and the Ritz. They were built near each other in a neighborhood close to the Prado art museum, each vying to be more luxurious than the other. This competition continues today; the current restoration of the Palace will cost about one hundred million dollars. When it is complete, the Palace will be upbranded from Marriott/Westin to Marriott Luxury Collection.
On the main floor there are some 17th century tapestries that were part of the original 1912 decor. You can see part of one of them in the photo below. They have all been recently restored and look amazing.
The restaurant in the picture is called The Cupola and if you look up at the ceiling, you can see why. The dome is the original construction from 1912, but it too has just been restored, having been entirely disassembled with each individual piece of glass being either cleaned or replaced.
The main entrance has also been restored to be just as it was in 1912, as has the reception lobby just inside. Lots of marble in there.
The library was empty, which was nice because it meant that Pedro could give us a quiet look around.
Wednesday, March 26th
We visited Aranjuez today, a town that was first established some five hundred years ago as the site of a summer palace. Today it is a town of 60,000, but until 1752, only members of the royal family were allowed to live there. There’s a palace, of course, and several huge courtyards. The main attractions are the extensive gardens, the biggest of which is the Island Garden—which is partially enclosed by a bend in the Tajo river and features dozens of big old trees as well as smaller plantings.
We had hoped to arrive early, but as it happened we didn’t arrive until…lunchtime! So we had the menu del día at a restaurant outside the palace grounds. It was the traditional kind of place with heavy white tablecloths and complementary rolls which the waiter tosses, not onto your starter plate, but just onto the tablecloth next to you. Good.
Another attraction of the site is the Museo de Falúas Reales. The Spanish word ‘falúa’ translates to ‘barge’ but these are recreational barges, not cargo carriers, and they have their own propulsion system—a bunch of guys pulling heavy oars. The Tajo river runs past the Aranjuez palace and long ago a weir was built to create a one-kilometer-long stretch of calm water. It seems that in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries it was fashionable for kings to have nice boats that they could go float around in whenever they felt like it. They weren’t for travel, just for fun. In England, Henry the Eighth had one for toddling around on the Thames. For the Spanish kings, Aranjuez was the favorite place to go barging and the museum holds five well-restored barges from the era.
It was a long walk to the see the barges, a walk which took us through many acres of royal fields and fruit trees.
Once we’d finished with the barge museum, it was time to get back to the train station and return to Madrid. The train line between Madrid and Aranjuez is a little bit special. It was completed in 1851 and was just the second rail line ever built in Spain. So why wasn’t it the first one? Something else was more important than taking the king to his boats?
Thursday, March 27th
Finally made it to the Thyssen Bornemisza museum today. Wonderful place. Here are some things we noticed.
Friday, March 28th
Today our friend M-HP met us in the city at Moncloa and we rode the bus out to Galapagar-La Navata, the northern suburb where he lives. We had lunch at a restaurant called Tablao and then went with him to pick up his two granddaughters from school. The girls are ten and twelve, so they both attend the same colegio. It was interesting to see how the parents came to pick up their kids. In Corvallis, we just have long lines of cars in which drivers wait patiently for the kids to come out and hop in. But at this school, the parents park their cars, get out, and walk over to the main gate, which is closed at that point and watched over by a guard. Then, about five minutes before school lets out, the guard opens the gate and the parents go into the school grounds and take up position near whatever door they know their kids will exit from. In our case, we waited in the back of the school by the playground…
When M-HP’s granddaughters came out, the five of us—in a throng of other parents and kids—walked back to the front of the school and exited through the same gate that we had entered.
We all went to the kids’ house and the girls had a little snack that Grandpa had bought them at the restaurant. E particularly enjoyed seeing the girls, as they are the granddaughters of her friend Margie who passed away two years ago. E was touched that the older girl told her that when she grows up she wants to be an English teacher “like Grandma.”
Saturday, March 29th
Our stay here is almost over. Today we met our friends L&M and M&P in Rivas to say our final goodbyes. Of course this involved another nice meal, this time at an Italian restaurant named Cabiria. Anyone recognize the name? We didn’t, but now we know that the restaurant was named for the main character in the 1957 Fellini film Nights of Cabiria. The decor was quite amusing and artistic.
We were very lucky that it was a sunny day and we spent time before and after the dinner sitting on L&M’s back terrace next to the swimming pool. That’s where we got dessert:
As we said goodbye, we all wondered if this might be the last time we would see each other. Travel gets harder as we age and Corvallis is a long, long way from Madrid.
Sunday, March 30th
This morning E went out to a bakery and got us a couple of fresh chocolate croissants. Clearly, she is well adapted to this environment. After breakfast, the day’s main question was whether all our stuff is going to fit into our suitcases.
Later, with cases mostly packed, we returned to our local restaurant for one last Spanish meal.
Monday, March 31st
We got up at 3:00am this morning and took an Uber to the airport. After checking bags, scanning our VAT refund code, getting through security, and finding our gate, we finally had breakfast around 5:00. By 6:30 we were in the air headed for Amsterdam; by 10:35 we were in another airplane, this one headed over the pole to Portland.
The plane was a KLM 787 configured to have a “Comfort Premium” section that sits just behind first class and in front of economy. The key comfort feature is space–lots of leg room, oodles of foot room and lots of space on both sides. It’s really nice. Our Delta flight to Europe from JFK had also been on a 787 with the same Comfort Premium configuration.
Although our section was toward the front, we were not permitted to use the First Class bathrooms. Of course not! So, from our section, if you wanted to go to the bathroom, you had to push aside a curtain and walk back through the economy section for a ways. That was a weird experience. As soon as you push that curtain aside, the sight before you is appalling. Oh my god, you think, look at these people, the way they’re jammed together. And you know just what it feels like because you’ve been there. And then right after that, you can’t stop yourself from feeling a twinge of superiority because you’re so much better off than those poor souls. And that makes you feel guilty. Why does it have to work this way? What have I done, you ask, to deserve this superior experience? Not that much, really, nothing you can think of offhand.
The weather was clear, but the view out the window was pretty dull, just many hours of featureless Arctic whiteness. Until, suddenly, it wasn’t quite so featureless any more.
As the plane descended into Portland, we both had the same feeling: our long stay in fantasyland was over. We were back in the real world. We got back to Corvallis at around two in the afternoon, twenty hours after that first Uber came to pick us up at Calle Piamonte at 3:00 in the morning. We have more or less survived—we think.