Denia to Madrid via Valencia

It has been a while since I’ve had to do a proper travel day. I can’t count coming to Dénia as one since I had a fun time with Sagrario and hardly felt the burden of suitcases at all. This time around I had a tricky task on my hands: splitting all my belongings into two suitcases, one I would leave behind in Valencia and one to take me through the next four months. This was not an easy task, believe me. Some of the clothes were easy to leave behind: I was heading into summer so anything that was too thick or warm could stay behind. Boots and winter jacket, for example … The bigger problem was that, in general, few of my clothes were meant for cold weather to begin with. So I had no choice but eliminate a few pieces that I was simply tired of or hadn’t really found any use for. I’m sure some of the culling decisions will come back to bite me, but, in the end, I did end up with two distinct, albeit no longer equal in weight, bags.

The not-so-fun part of all of this was going to be getting myself and all my crap onto a bus at an ungodly hour (for the current me) on a Saturday morning of a national holiday. I contemplated walking to the bus station and took a reconnaissance stroll there to check the level of difficulty only to throw the idea right out the window: the sidewalks in Dénia are not terribly wide nor are they very smooth. Lugging two suitcases and a large backpack on smooth sidewalks is tough enough; this would have been torture.

This being a small town, taxis aren’t something you just go to the nearest corner and hail, something I’m very good at. Here, one needs to reserve a ride by calling a phone number, something I’m not that good at all. Fortunately, however, the amount of information I needed to transmit was minimal and this time I knew precisely where I was and where I wanted the cab to be: in front of the hotel in front of my house. Easy peasy. And it was!

I made it to the bus station with plenty of time to spare (this town is way smaller by car than on foot) and settled to wait for the bus practicing my questions to the driver asking whether I can change my final destination at such a late stage. You see, when I was buying the ticket I had not had the brilliant idea of leaving a bag behind yet so my destination was the train station. Only later did I realize that the main bus station in Valencia was very close across the Turia from Sagrario’s house and a much more logical destination if making a pit stop there. As it turns out the driver couldn’t care less where I got off as long as I got off. Great, another few hours of stress unnecessarily experienced. (I’ve noticed that whenever I stress about something it’s totally unwarranted and the things I think will be simple and straightforward turn out to be nightmares, but maybe that’s just me.)

The bus ride itself was very comfortable: I got to see a few of the towns between Dénia and Valencia since the bus made a number of stops along the way. Everything was going fine until we were leaving Gandía and the bus driver missed a turn and lost his way. This happened to me once in Victoria but there the driver got himself back on track almost immediately. This dude’s solution was to get on the highway back to Oliva, some 30km the wrong way! That’s a whole 60km detour but … whatever … I had lots of time. I just felt bad for anyone who had to make another connection or appointment they now could be late for. To his credit, the driver did make up the time and we were ultimately only about 15-20 minutes late.

I had asked Ewa for help getting me and my load from the bus station to the house so she was there waiting for me. This was such a nice feeling … it felt like coming home. We then walked the kilometre or so through the park which may not have been such a great idea since my suitcases weren’t built for off-road travel, but we made it in one piece. After getting the one bag up to the third floor (no elevator, remember?) and a brief rest, we headed out in search of a lunch and, eventually, a taxi. Or a taxi, and then lunch, whichever came first. Unfortunately for us, however, the Italian place I thought to lunch at was still closed (being hungry before 1:30pm can be tricky here) and the taxis were nowhere to be found! In my absence the city of Valencia government had decided to tear up the whole of Plaza de la Reina (where the taxis normally hang around) and make it more awesome, eventually. Of course this means that for the next x number of months it will be a total mess. So much for the easy taxi to the train station idea. Ciutat Vella being what it is, there are few options for finding non-pedestrian modes of transportation so our next option was to walk to Plaça de l’Ajuntament and try our luck there.

Getting hungrier by the minute we did stop at one of our favourite pizza joints to have a quick bite to eat and do a little catching up. Ewa’s time in Spain is also coming dangerously close to an end, and she’s desperate to extend it as long as possible. She has new reasons for wanting to stay here longer and they’re not the usual ones (weather, food, and drinks). I will maintain her privacy but let me mention there may be a handsome opera-singing Spanish teacher involved … I will say no more. I feel really sad that she will be leaving soon and these few hours will have been our last ones together for a long time. I’m sure she’ll come back to Spain in the future and I will definitely be visiting Poland soon, but it’s just not the same. So we had a lovely lunch reminiscing while being interrupted every so often by a protest march going down the street behind us.

After lunch we walked over to l’Ajuntament to catch a taxi from there but, for the first time ever, there were none to be found! My luck wasn’t holding at all. I was already getting pretty close to the València Joaquín Sorolla train station (the one right next to Nord, but a bit further south; don’t ask why they’re so close to each other and yet they’re not one and the same 🤷‍♀️) but the actual entrance is just far enough that a further walk was starting to look overwhelming. Just because it was only one suitcase and not two it doesn’t mean it wasn’t heavy. Finally I did manage to snag a cab (with a lady driver, to boot), and said my goodbyes to Ewa. I will miss her terribly but hope she’ll be able to come visit me in Madrid. She said she would so I’m still feeling positive this wasn’t our final final parting.

I made the train with plenty of time to spare. Restrictions may be loosening but travel is still not as common as in normal times which is both good and bad (good for me and having a pretty empty car, bad for the industry). Having made this trip a couple of times now I felt like an old pro, going through security, finding my coach, getting my bag into the storage area (definitely easier with just one!), settling down for the two hours, and, ultimately, enjoying the views during the day. The previous trips were all done either early in the morning or late in the evening so this time I was finally able to pay attention to what was zooming past my window. I was, once again, quite impressed at the speed we were achieving. Being able to say I travelled at 300km per hour is quite cool, at least in my humble opinion.

I probably should have bought a metro card when I was here in March and then I could have taken the metro to my new place, but I hadn’t, so, once again, I needed to find a cab. That was not a problem … what was a problem was the fact that I now had to kill a couple of hours while my room was being readied. It seems a balcony door had just been painted and the fumes needed to be aired out meaning I was stuck on a very busy street in a totally unknown neighbourhood, trying to find a place to eat and waste some time. All the places with terrazas (i.e. tables on the sidewalk because the concept of a terrace you and I have and what passes for one in Madrid are two different things) were packed and, in any case, not terribly suitcase- and backpack-friendly. Very hungry at this point I did find a place that served roast chicken that looked like a good deal so I settled in there to eat and wait.

Exactly at the appointed time I went to the building and got buzzed in. The address I was given had some weird instructions (piso 5, ext izq) which I took to be the fifth floor, exterior (i.e. the first elevator closest to the building entrance), and left … left? From whose point of view? When I reached the top floor (in the world’s tightest elevator, I might add), I was faced with a door on each side of the lift doors and, a little confused, picked the one on the left. It turned out to be a good choice but honestly, the fact that I wasn’t 100% sure at first should mean there is room for better signage … or maybe that’s just me.

The door was opened by my host, Daniel, who apparently lives in a different part of the house which, when I was first told this, meant (at least to me) in the apartment across the hall (on the right of the lift). I had no concept of how huge the apartment I was to be staying in was, however, and quickly became aware that what I consider to be normal apartments in Spain went totally out the window. What made things even weirder was what Daniel looked like (i.e. a minor English aristocrat wearing his smoking jacket at tea time) and his mannerism didn’t stray far from that image, nor did the decor. As he showed me to my suite, I got glimpses of a bygone era of Spanish aristocracy or, at the least, the well-to-do part of the society. Many of the furniture pieces belonged in a museum, and I bet some of the wall art as well. There was also the smallest kitchen I’ve ever seen which begged the question “why have such a huge place but so tiny a kitchen?” There were also many books … everywhere. At first that got me very excited, but my excitement turned into disappointment: the books that I would be interested in perusing (on Spanish history) were all large and very detailed (and thus not even good for helping me fall asleep since they were large, heavy, and cumbersome) and those that were more appropriately sized where on topics I would never find tempting to read, at least not in Spanish (religion, primarily Catholic, philosophy, and what I would call a combination of the two). I read a lot of non-fiction but this stuff was way too scholarly even for my eclectic tastes. My room was full of books like that and the walls were full of religious memorabilia. But, the bed seemed comfy, I had my very own large private bathroom, and, what excited me most, I finally had a place to sit that wasn’t the bed or an uncomfortable desk chair: an actual comfy armchair by the window, even if that window opened to the interior courtyard almost all buildings in Spain have and not a beautiful view over the neighbourhood.

Since this was May Day in Spain, and everything that could close, did, I had no chance to restock my pantry at the Carrefour Express next door, contrary to their sign that said “always open.” I guess “always” does not include a combination day of a Saturday and Worker’s Day … hmmm. Wanting to have something for the next morning I did go hunting for one of the many corner stores I felt would be open. The equivalent of the Chinese corner store so common in Vancouver is often an Arab-run one here, but, lo and behold, I did stumble into one operated by some Chinese folks. These guys sure knew how to take advantage of someone desperate for basics: none of the items in the store had posted prices on them so the cereal, sugar, milk, and flour that I purchased there were the most expensive cereal, sugar, milk, and flour I had bought anywhere in the world. Too embarrassed to put anything back (and wanting to have a decent breakfast the next day … it being Sunday I knew I wouldn’t have many options for grocery shopping then either), I swallowed my pride and paid but left with the distinct impression that prices in that store not only change on a whim but also vary depending on who is buying what and when (clearly being a hungry tourist resulted in my paying a premium). Another lesson learned.

All in all, I think I will enjoy Madrid — the bed is comfy (as is the chair), I can make the small kitchen work, the neighbourhood is very central, and the building super quiet. As long as I don’t have to deal with the odd host too much, I think it’s going to be just fine.