Portbou, the Pyrenees

9.30 am

We are now almost in Portbou, two kilometres from France, but still Spain. A little seaside town where we hope to find accommodation for a couple of nights and have some by the sea time before we hit France proper. We have trained here overnight from Madrid - 12 hours as opposed to 5, but much cheaper, saved a night's accommodation and this train goes right up the Costa Brava, not just to Barcelona like the faster trains. I forgot how is to be in those little cabins, trying to sleep but no knowing whether or not other people will be coming in at every stop. Bella slept like a log, Hen too, eventually - quite an adventure for them. 6 little bunks. The main drawback of long distance train travel, of course, is the loos. Let's not even go there - most of you will have been there before and will not want to go back!

Anyway, it was great to spend some time in Madrid - very cool city. We have had better food elsewhere, but our pension was excellent, spotless and friendly and such a bargain. We went to the Prado Museum and even just on one floor saw the most amazing collection of paintings – Velasquez, Rembrandt, Rubens, Goya, Durer and others as well as an exhibition about to finish by Patinir, an amazing flemish painter...(and as an extra bonus it is FREE entry on Sundays!)

We spent an afternoon in the Palacio Real, such extraordinary opulence - has to be seen to be believed. Also quite amazing to be able to just walk around unguided. There was even a room called the porcelain room, which had walls covered in porcelain figurines - eek! I fully appreciated our fairly plain decor at home - bring on the white walls and polished wood floors... Definitely worth a visit.

On our last day yesterday we did exciting things like laundry and getting to the right station to stow our bags and buy our tickets north (Chamartin, not Atocha where we arrived)… By the time we had done all that and had something to eat we had time left for the Museo de Cuidad Madrid, which had amazing models of the city and great depictions of life in Madrid through the ages. We also made it to the Museum of Natural History, which looked very impressive, but it was too late to go in. A quick helado and it was back to the station to investigate our couchette on the train...and here we are!

Sorry not much detail on Madrid itself - I think Conrad has written more. It was cool though - very walkable, sophisticated metro and sophisticated looking people.

6pm update:

I am posting this from the cafe owned by the people who have rented us rooms, 2 of them, just renovated on the 4th floor of a lovely 1880 (young!) building just around the corner. Portbou is cute and nice. Not v touristy, very off season. We spent a nice quiet afternoon on the beach, cloudy but still pleasant. We`ll stay 2 nights then off to Perpignan to start the French leg of the journey…