Europe Day 22 - flight to Stansted, England (via Madrid)

Friday
The alarm clock rang at 6:15 am. Way to early for breakfast. Downstairs was quiet except for the receptionist who called a taxi for us, said good bye and let us out at 7 am. The taxi was promptly there and brought us to the train station. We had our tickets already so nothing to worry.

The tickets also have your seat numbers.

The train ride from Seville to Madrid was very comfortable and took only 2 hours and 20 minutes.

I like to look out of the window and see the landscape change.

You can see we are very close to Madrid with the graffiti etc.

James, the avid reader, had read that you can take a local train to the airport free when you have a ticket you arrived with. We could not figure out how to do it though. We almost gave up and wanted to head for the bus we had previously used (5 Euros each) when I saw somebody I thought I could ask. It was a very nice station person who understood me and took us to the right machine, took our tickets to scan and tapped from one screen to the others and produced the next tickets for us. Gracias! We had to wait about half an hour but would have had to wait for the bus too.

That train took us to Terminal 4 and we still had to take the airport bus to go to T1.
Through the check-in which is a relief since RyanAir is so strict with the carry-on. Through the security. Don't these restrooms look inviting?

The plane was full except for one empty seat. Seats were 3 and 3 with aisle in the middle. The window seat next to me stayed empty and as soon as the doors were closed I scooted over so James could sit sideways. Otherwise he really would have had a problem with his long legs.
We were supposed to leave at 13:35 and almost on time. The flight to Stansted took only about two hours. I loved my window seat.
The dry landscape short after Madrid.

Mountains in the north of Spain.

England. So much more populated.

We walked from the plane to the terminal. It is definitely colder in England, but at least the sun is shining.

Got our luggage. Texted with Mark. Everything fine. Having one beer waiting. What a disappointment ... they only have French beer. Really?

Mark picked us up with his Jaguar and we have a lovely drive to Bec and Mark's house.
A welcome G+T. This spring they had sold their house, bought another one and moved. This house is 300 years old and needs major renovations which they like to do. They do a lot of the work themselves. We are amazed how much they have already done in the short time. Of course we had seen photos of demolishens etc.

We watched a part of a program they had saved. Their previous house (which we had not seen) had been on a TV show when it was for sale ... the British equivalent of our "House Hunters". That was fun.

Upstairs. You can see one of the still open walls here.

We settle into the guest room.

There are three cats roaming the house. Sometimes they suddenly appear here or there and want to play.

Bec had made reservations at "The Dog", a lovely local pub.

We all shared a sample platter as starters.

Bec's main course:

Mussels!

Local fish for me: Seabream and veggies

Curried lamb for James and Mark.

Bec was the designated driver home and we went to bed soon. After all, Bec and Mark had worked all day.
Even though the cats would have liked to play.

Night night.

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