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Madrid

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 26 June Our return to Madrid was not quite as chaotic.  We took the 35 minute train trip into Madrid Atocha Station.  The only moment of drama was going through security in Toledo. I had the two knives Greg has bought as gifts in my bag.  The guard asked to see our receipt.  I opened our banking app and showed him a purchase (no idea if it was the right one or not).  It was from Saturday, and he informed us that we had three days from date of purchase to travel on the train with these knives.  Luckily it was our last Spanish train trip, but good to know if you are planning to visit Spain and buy knives!!  It was a huge train station and we set off to find the metro.  No signs at all.  We asked at the help desk.  Ah, the metro line was being renovated.  Of course!  It was a 15 minute walk to the next metro station.  And it was already 38 degrees and brilliant sunshine.  A taxi seemed like a good option.  But...
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Toledo

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 23 June We had some taxi drama leaving Santiago - Greg asked the driver who pulled up if he was the one we had ordered, he said yes (probably misunderstanding, English is not widely spoken in Santiago) and we'd no sooner taken off than our taxi pulled up.  Greg offered our driver 5 euro to placate the other guy, rather than move, but no, a long conversation with lots of yelling and hand shaking had to occur.  Luckily we had plenty of time to get to the train station for our first train, to Ourense.  We had a two hour wait there: although it appeared the first train we were on was going to Madrid, we had to change.  I blame Trainline, who I had booked with,  of course!  Anyway we filled the time with a phone call to Bella, Thomas and Hayley, which was lovely  Hayley is very excited about her upcoming holiday and has all the arrivals and departures worked out, including Bella arriving from Brisbane on Thursday night (early hours of Friday morning)....
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Santiago de Compostela

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 19 June So we made it to our little apartment which is part of the old city, just 10 minutes stroll from the cathedral - we can ALMOST see it from our window! We googled good places to eat and headed into town, hoping that we'd get in somewhere as it was early... but the town is full of tourists and pilgrims and tourist pilgrims!  A lot of them are Spanish too!  We went to one place that was highly rated but they couldn't fit us in until 10.15!  Gasp.  We found another cafe and rebooked the first one for tomorrow night.   We ordered the Padron Peppers - they are so delicious.  The Galicia pie, which is made with the dried cod (bacalao) - it was OK but I don't feel we need to try it again.  We also had calamari and chips!  Washed down with wine and beer.  And we were in bed before our 10.15 previous booking! 20 June Happy Birthday Fiona!  Our lovely sister in law/sister who will be visiting us soon in Darwin! Today we took the ...
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