Madrid to Paris
Day 43. After a fairly rocky sleep for both of us, we got up this morning and headed to breakfast in the basement of the hotel. After that we went up to pack, after verifying the checkout time (noon). The plan was to come downstairs at 11:30 and order a taxi for 11:45.
We finished packing earlier than we expected so we headed down around 10:30 to hang out in the lobby. After taking care of checkout, the clerk offered to order the taxi earlier than we originally asked for, and he came about 15 minutes later. We really needed a larger taxi for all our stuff, which would have been more expensive, but the clerk said he knew a driver so he called him directly and we got a slightly larger cab (big enough) for the normal price.
That is just an example of the many ways that hotel took care of us. As we were waiting for the cab, the manager came over and talked to us for a few minutes, wishing us well on our trip. I'd talked to him about the wifi in the room, and he told me then that someone would be coming that same day to upgrade the wifi for our floor. So he took action on the problem fairly quickly. I hope to come back to Madrid someday, and when I do, I'll choose Hotel Principe Pio again.
Off to the airport. Cramming everything into the cab was a chore but we did it. The traffic was light the whole way and we got there well over an hour before we'd planned to. We didn't know whether we were considered a domestic or international flight so the driver just picked one, which turned out to be the wrong one (note to self: check this in the future). So we have a very long walk to get into our checkin counter.
Once there we got checked in easily, and the clerk arranged for us to have a window and aisle seat with nobody between us, so that made for a very pleasant flight. And, we'd gotten our big suitcase down to 23kg so there was no baggage fee.
Then off to security, and getting to second base with the security officer. Sigh. But we made it through, rested for a while, then walked to our gate plenty early. So in a day when nothing went according to our plan, it worked out perfectly.
We boarded first due to the walker, which was very helpful. We were on AirEuropa, which I've never heard of before, and other than the overhead screens that played commercials the whole trip (no sound, unless you plugged in earphones), it was pretty painless. We offboarded last at Orly, and were bused from the plane to the terminal (weird), then were off to baggage pickup, which was there before we were. Then outside to another taxi.
This time I waited until a large taxi pulled in, waving other travelers by me, and we got a nice cabbie who loaded all our stuff in pretty easily. Here is another place where my 3x5 cards paid off, as I could just give him the card and he got us to the hotel. It was a bit of the long way around the city to the hotel, but looking at the map and considering the time of day (afternoon rush), it was probably just about the most workable.
We got into the hotel, got registered, and up the lift (two runs; the lift is too small for all of our stuff). The room is about half the size of our hotel room in Madrid, but that's ok, it's about twice the price. And it comes with Rules!
We unpacked and crashed for a while. But we were pretty hungry so I started looking up restaurants around the hotel, and as with Madrid, there are a ton of them here too. We chose Le Petit Gourmet just down the block, easy to walk to. Kathy had duck confit and a nicoise salad, I had a roasted rabbit dish, and we both had pumpkin soup. It was all completely amazing, truly a French experience all around.
Then back to the room, where we are now crashing for the night, completely exhausted.
We finished packing earlier than we expected so we headed down around 10:30 to hang out in the lobby. After taking care of checkout, the clerk offered to order the taxi earlier than we originally asked for, and he came about 15 minutes later. We really needed a larger taxi for all our stuff, which would have been more expensive, but the clerk said he knew a driver so he called him directly and we got a slightly larger cab (big enough) for the normal price.
That is just an example of the many ways that hotel took care of us. As we were waiting for the cab, the manager came over and talked to us for a few minutes, wishing us well on our trip. I'd talked to him about the wifi in the room, and he told me then that someone would be coming that same day to upgrade the wifi for our floor. So he took action on the problem fairly quickly. I hope to come back to Madrid someday, and when I do, I'll choose Hotel Principe Pio again.
Off to the airport. Cramming everything into the cab was a chore but we did it. The traffic was light the whole way and we got there well over an hour before we'd planned to. We didn't know whether we were considered a domestic or international flight so the driver just picked one, which turned out to be the wrong one (note to self: check this in the future). So we have a very long walk to get into our checkin counter.
Once there we got checked in easily, and the clerk arranged for us to have a window and aisle seat with nobody between us, so that made for a very pleasant flight. And, we'd gotten our big suitcase down to 23kg so there was no baggage fee.
Then off to security, and getting to second base with the security officer. Sigh. But we made it through, rested for a while, then walked to our gate plenty early. So in a day when nothing went according to our plan, it worked out perfectly.
We boarded first due to the walker, which was very helpful. We were on AirEuropa, which I've never heard of before, and other than the overhead screens that played commercials the whole trip (no sound, unless you plugged in earphones), it was pretty painless. We offboarded last at Orly, and were bused from the plane to the terminal (weird), then were off to baggage pickup, which was there before we were. Then outside to another taxi.
This time I waited until a large taxi pulled in, waving other travelers by me, and we got a nice cabbie who loaded all our stuff in pretty easily. Here is another place where my 3x5 cards paid off, as I could just give him the card and he got us to the hotel. It was a bit of the long way around the city to the hotel, but looking at the map and considering the time of day (afternoon rush), it was probably just about the most workable.
We got into the hotel, got registered, and up the lift (two runs; the lift is too small for all of our stuff). The room is about half the size of our hotel room in Madrid, but that's ok, it's about twice the price. And it comes with Rules!
We unpacked and crashed for a while. But we were pretty hungry so I started looking up restaurants around the hotel, and as with Madrid, there are a ton of them here too. We chose Le Petit Gourmet just down the block, easy to walk to. Kathy had duck confit and a nicoise salad, I had a roasted rabbit dish, and we both had pumpkin soup. It was all completely amazing, truly a French experience all around.
Then back to the room, where we are now crashing for the night, completely exhausted.