We left Marbella without major incident around 11 AM. The big win was retrieving Judy’s small bag from the bus company in Malaga. She’d left it on the bus returning from the Alhambra and we determined on Friday that the cleaning crew had found it. SInce Malaga is on the route from Marbella to Madrid we only spent and extra 15 minutes to retrieve it. The bag is just big enough to carry a water bottle and Judy’s billfold so it’s a great walk around carryall. Her billfold wasn’t in it this time but a debit card and a credit card were, so getting it back was a big deal.

The trip to Madrid was smooth. We’d scored some churros in Marbella so we had something to munch on. A quick bathroom break turned into Coke Zero, café con leche and an ice cream bar. Then lunch later on. The two of them had veal. I had gazpacho and ensalada rusa, also known as Spanish salad, which is in the final diagnosis is potato salad with peas and carrot bits stirred in. Judy thinks there must be beets in it because of the rust = Russian name but I didn’t taste any.

The countryside was at first the mountainous terrain of Andalucia we’ve become accustomed to but by La Mancha and Toledo provinces it pretty much flattened out and we saw vineyards, fruit trees and even hay fields to break the monotony of olive groves. 

It never ceases to amaze me how many olive trees there are in that part of the country and causes me to wonder how in the world all those olives are harvested. Enrique says itinerant workers from Rumania and Africa come in to shake the trees and gather the fruit. But there are only so many people in Rumania and Africa to shake a gazillion trees and gather the fruit.

We passed through the Jaén region, famous for its high quality olive oil, La Mancha province and its Manchugo cheese and Valdepenas and its wine. The highways were excellent but watch out for the well-marked speed traps: cameras take pictures of speeders and send them a ticket. I should know; I got nabbed in northern Spain four years ago. Cost me 50 clams before the dust settled.

So we’re now at Enrique’s apartment. We’ll relax for a bit and then decide on dinner, in or out. Tomorrow’s flight isn’t until 1:20 PM but the NATO summit is going on in Madrid and they warn us to expect delays. So Enrique will drop us at the airport after breakfast and we’ll use the Iberia lounge, to which our business class tickets entitle us, to while away the hours until flight time.

Thanks for traveling with us on this trip. This will be our last blog posting but we’ll be back on the air beginning on August 11 when we head to Switzerland with grandson Carter. See you then!