Last Day in Madrid…or Not!

After yesterday’s fantastic day in Toledo, we decided that today should be a more relaxed day, especially as our flight was scheduled to leave at 7:50pm.

Some how Grigoria’s parents figured that I like sports (no idea what gave them that impression!) and suggested that we do a tour of Real Madrid’s home ground - The Bernabeu Stadium.
http://www.realmadrid.com/portada_eng.htm

So after a short bus ride into the city, our tickets in hand we were off on the tour. I’ve been to a few stadiums now including Real Madrid’s arch rivals – Barcelona so I knew this would be a treat.

In essence the tour included views from the top stands, players tunnel and visitors changing rooms, the dug-out, field of play (for which I got into trouble for touching the grass), royal box and finally the trophy and history exhibition.

After that excitement (for me anyway), we decided to stretch the legs and walked up Plaza de Castilla to the “Leaning Towers” buildings that are a recent architectural statement in the skyline.

Despite my good intentions of taking Grigoria’s parents to one of the pretty Madrid coffee shops, we unfortunately started to run out or time so we headed back home to prepare for the impending flight.

In the early afternoon we set off for the airport to catch our evening flight. However, it wasn’t to be. Unfortunately our flight, booked through BA but run by IBERIA, was overbooked and we were left stranded at the airport with no other flight to get home.

To add insult to injury neither BA nor IBERIA seemed to be too bothered about the havoc they caused. In the end we managed to get a seat on the early Monday morning flight meaning that we had to spend the night in Madrid and get to work late.
On the bright side we had somewhere nice to stay, and Grigoria’s parents prepared a lovely dinner to take our minds off the rather eventful end to our Madrid trip.

Overall a great weekend spent with Grigoria’s parents.