October 28th, 2015

​     Yesterday morning we left Madrid for Barcelona.
      We took the wonderful, fast spotless Madrid metro,

​….from Puerta del Sol to the beautiful Madrid railway station Atoche, 

.....where we stopped for breakfast at our favorite Atoche café, busy and crowded,

…and where we’ve stopped to eat every time we’ve arrived in Madrid, so that now we kind of think of this railway café as “our place”
      We rode another clean, on time, oh-so-comfy 300 km-per-hour fast-train for the  three-hour trip to Barcelona.  
​      Our seats were in a "quiet car", with the following sign attached to the back of each seat:

​   Tom and I weren’t sure if that meant no talking, either, but we noticed that nobody else was talking, so we didn’t talk for the whole three hours either,  just in case.  The ride was quieter than church. It was kind of nice.
      When we arrived in Sants train station in Barcelona, - with its fabulous business-disco decor -

.....we went into two-headed turtle mode and muddled around a bit before we got our bearings, figured out – that is, Tom figured out – the local public transportation and which metro to take from the train station to our hostel.
     I'd booked us a room at the Hostal Plaza Goya BCN near the University of Barcelona on the edge of the area known as the Old Town, and we got our first view of this beautiful city when we arrived at our metro stop in the University district.

    The Hostal Plaza Goya BCN,

    ...is located on the second floor of an old stone building on a lovely tree-lined street full of shops and restaurants, 
​      Our room, for which we're paying about $92 per night, is pretty and modern,

...and has a balcony over-looking the street.

    Our hostel is also close to the famous Plaça Catalunya and the walking street called La Rambla.
     Our helpful hospitaliera gave us a walking map of the city, and after we were setlled into our room went out to have a look around.the Old Town

​....past the campus of the University of Barcelona,

...to La Rambla.
    La Rambla starts at La Plaça Catalunya and ends at the sea, but we entered it in the middle and walked a few blocks to the vast food market known as the Mercat de la Boqueria,

     After we'd looked around rhe market we walked back to La  Plaça Catalunya where we sat for a while, people-watching and enjoying the beauty of this city,

...and we haven't even seen the beautiful parts yet.