Madrid to Granada

I still felt a little under the weather this morning. Initially, I attributed my ailment to too much Chinese food last night. As the day wore on it felt more like a stomach virus. This is not the kind of feeling you want to have this far away from home and with so many miles to cover!

We skipped breakfast and packed up our suitcases for the next day of travel. There was just enough time to go to the dining room for a cup of coffee before the appointed time to meet the others in the lobby. By 9:30 we all gathered with our massive amounts of suitcases to pack in two vans and Missionary Markham’s car trunk. One of the vans was a rental, a diesel powered Mercedes van, from Pepecar.com. It has a fair amount of space behind the last seat. Most of the luggage was packed in this space. Missionary Sones has a SFC van which we also packed with bags. The remaining four suitcases went on the top of the van secured to a luggage rack. We may have looked something like the Beverly Hillbillies as we headed down the road.

The first part of our journey was about an hour and a half trek south of Madrid to the ancient town of Toledo. We stopped once on the way for a “sandbox” break while several took advantage of the stop for various snacks. Toledo was once the capital city of Spain and is famous for its swords and knifes, Toledo steel. The oldest part of the city still has the ancient walls surrounding it and the ancient gates still stand. Access to the city comes through the wall around the gate since modern vehicles would not have fit through the old passage. We roamed around the streets and alleyways of the old city which is now a major tourist attraction. There are numerous shops with assorted souvenirs for purchase, Missionary Sones advised us of one shop where anyone in his group is given a 20% discount. That is where most of us purchased some souvenirs: pocket knives, postcards, letter openers, fans, hair accessories, etc. I didn’t see anyone buying the swords or fencing supplies!

Lunch was an adventure. Missionary Sones cautioned us that it was an experiment. It was a different place than he had tried before. They seated us in a small backroom where Krantz started getting claustrophobic. I noticed he sat where he could get out easily. The first course was either salad or spaghetti. I chose the salad. It seemed like this is kind of a traditional salad because we begin to see it everywhere. It was lettuce, tomato, a few other vegetables with a spoonful of tuna on top. Oil and vinegar is the dressing of choice with nothing else to choose from! The second course was a traditional Spanish dish of yellow saffron rice with a few seafood surprises (or chicken) in it, called Paella. The final course was a meat dish with fried potatoes (French fries seems to be a staple). The choice of meat was lamb, chicken, or pork. That was easy; I chose chicken. Basically, it was a roasted drumstick. Oh, yes we topped it off with dessert. The choices were flan, pudding, or ice cream. Flan seems to be the consistent choice of Spanish fare. The food was good but according to Brother Sones it would not be a place on his recommended list for the future.

Following lunch we took a drive outside the city to a vantage point where you can view the entire city from another hill. It was a beautiful spot for pictures. Which is why Wayne Miraflor suddenly realized that he had left his camera behind at the little restaurant. Brother Markham drove him back down the hill to the city in the vain hope that the camera might still be in the bathroom where he has laid it on the sink. Amazingly enough it was turned in and was waiting for him to come back and claim it. God must be with that man!

Today was one of the longer drives of the week. When we left Toledo we continued south to Granada. It would take about three to four hours but seemed much longer in the packed vans. I’m afraid we all took a little siesta as we drove through the flat land plains southward. When we awoke there still wasn’t too much to see but an occasional house in the distance. I must say the road system in Spain is very modern with freeways (Autovia) providing safe and smooth travel around the country. As we got closer to Granada we drove through a mountain range with deep canyons and gorges. It was a beautiful drive.

We finally arrived at our motel for the evening after 8:00 PM. It was the Hotel Ibis, a conservative but clean accommodation. We all met in their small café for dinner about an hour later after we settled in our rooms. I still was not feeling well but hoped that by eating something I might feel better. The menu selections were similar to lunch. I’m catching on that the menu and items offered don’t vary too much at restaurants in Spain. After I ate some spaghetti, bread, turkey (instead of Chicken) and potatoes, I excused myself and went to the room to try to rest and get over this virus or whatever is plaguing me. There would be no blogging tonight.