Iberian Spring: Day 8 Seville to Madrid

Soundtrack: Hala Madrid y nada mas (the Real Madrid anthem, as they won’t be playing it tonight at Bernabeu)

We had a midday train so took the morning fairly easy. My cold turned into the annoying cough so neither of us got the best night’s sleep. So we got up, packed, and trundled our way towards the trainstation, about 2km but this ay we got our steps up. Or something.

We found a little place for breakfast, they seemed to specialise in sandwiches so it was looking like L would be left with ham and eggs, but they understood “sin gluten”. They understood very well, the guy taking our order didn’t even blink when we asked for gluten free, he was like give me a difficult dietary requirement cos just sin gluten isn’t an issue. And it wasn’t, L scored a tasty sandwich while I ordered a Cuban sandwich and coffee with milk. The coffee was very strong, I must try to find the link to someone talking about how spain does their coffee differently, how they deliberately end up with a slightly bitter brew, as this coffee fit that style. The sandwich was also good, roast pork, ham and melted cheese and crusty bread, enough to keep me going.

We found the train station easy enough, though the last 50 metres were uphill and definitely not appreciated. As far as walking goes, Seville is pretty good, it’s very flat most of the time; on the negative side they are doing some works and digging up footpaths, which makes wheeling a suitcase a little tricky.

We breezed through the security check (weirdly they only scanned our cases, not our pockets) and found our train, our seats were even free so we didn’t have to dislodge any lost USians. It was a high speed train, so takes less than 3 hours to go from Seville to Madrid. I liked the nice screen display showing how fast we were travelling, at times getting up to 260 km/h. The only times I noticed the speed was when I tried to take pictures of the countryside. FYI the flat plains we travelled through did appear to be damp, so maybe the rain does mainly fall there.

Once underway, they brought around the little box of tapas we’d pre-ordered, some ham, cheese, sausages, crackers, olives, and of course the ubiquitous Russian salad. What did they eat here before the Russian’s brought that. Being too lazy to google, I’m going to guess t it likely started getting called that during the civil war, when there was a fairly large Soviet presence in Spain. Afterall, given Seville was likely one of the first places in Europe to see potatoes, it seems weird to name potato salad after a faraway place like Russia. Overall the little box was a tasty treat.

We got to Madrid without issues, though it was amusing that out carriage also had the cafe/dining car. It sounded like some of the passengers were just using this as a bar, as everytime out otherwise sound-reducing door opened there were a lot of raucous cheers and sounds of convivial frivolity going on.

We picked a hostel near the train station, one that also has private rooms. Our main room is on the corner, and has five sides, though none of them seem to be the same length. It does have a view right across to the Reina Sofia museum, where we’re headed tomorrow, so that’s a plus.

Having spotted a gluten free bakery nearby, we headed out for a late lunch to check it out. They do sweet things and rolls, so L went for a Caprese salad roll and I picked ham and cheese. It was decent gluten free bread, though it I was being picky a little dry: it would have been amazing with some additional butter melting into it. Wandering a littler further down the road we found a games shop, full of Spanish versions of interesting games. We also got a lesson in shops and licensing: shops that sell non-medicinal things like vitamins, dietary supplements, herbal stuff, etc are called “parafarmacias”, if you want over the counter good things you need a regular “farmacia”.

After another rest, and some research, we found a place that did 100% gluten free tapas, and who had available tables, so we booked and then grabbed a Bolt. I started with a vermouth, the good local stuff, and I must say that I’m getting a taste for it. Sadly options for getting a steady supply in Australia seem slim, as the market seems dominated with the italian martini variety which not the same, but we’ll ask around spanish firneds who might know someone who knows someone and see how it goes. We had goat cheese croquettes, and cuttlefish croquettes, and both were delicious. Definitely better than the Seville ones from the previous night. Next was confit artichokes and these were also so very good — not as good as the Seville ones with pedro ximenez, ham, and prawns but still very good. I’ going to miss artichokes this good when I get home. Finally we had the breaded stuffed chicken fillet, which was I guess a little like a good old parmigiana but the ham and cheese were definitely better. A wonderful feast, and proof that Spain can do gluten free, and do it well, when it tries. Hopefully a few more places start to get on board.

Madrid was comfortably warm today so we took the stroll back to the hotel, admiring the many large and old buildings in the centre of the city, and stopping in at starbucks to pick up a new mug. I dunno, maybe we’re just weird, but I do tend to get strange looks from the staff when I only get the cute mug, and skip ordering the insipid overly sweet beverages (I’m beginning to think they could be improved by the addition of tiger milk mushroom beverage, surely it couldn’t hurt.) There were quite a few folks out on the street, soaking up the Friday evening and good weather. There likely would have been more but Real Madrid are playing at home tonight, so there are likely a bunch at the stadium (I thought about going but the cheap seats were 75 euros). As I type we’re into the last few minutes and it’s looking like a draw, so there’ll be a bunch of unhappy Real Madrid fans spilling out into the streets shortly. I’ll just type away and be smug about the 75 euros I can now spend on other stuff.

Tomorrow is all about art; first we do the Reina Sofia, mostly because I want to see Picasso’s Guernica, and then the Museo del Prado for many many wonderful things.

Spoiler alert, 2nd placed Real Madrid drew 1-1 with 12th placed Girona at home.