After the museum we hopped over to the Atocha train station, an odd choice since last month hundreds of people were killed by a terrorist bomb on the trains a couple miles before they pulled into this station. The station is a grand industrial revolution sort of space, made very funky by a huge rain forest planted in the middle of the platform. We stopped here for a coffee, then made our way back to the hotel.

We could barely keep our eyes open, so we ended up eating at the hotel, which was about the only place in Madrid that opened at the "early" 8.30 pm time we requested in order to avoid falling asleep in our paella. The room was suitably grand and the service very professional, although the food was pretty hit or miss. I had a nice foie gras starter, but my main, three somewhat smelly scallops smothered in a sour sauce, misfired on all cylinders. (It did, however, allow me to impress you with my alliteration abilities.)

107. Madrid

Service was quite friendly and professional, and our room was large, with old fashioned high ceilings. I guess you would call the room nicely decorated, or at least appropriately decorated, but it's an old, fusty style that I'd never choose. The overall fustiness of the style is ruined by Somchai's weird habit of only photographing rooms when they're messy rather than waiting for housekeeping to tidy up. I don't know if I've made this point before, but in every hotel we've ever stayed at, I don't think we have any photos of a made bed. (Room: 6, Facilities: 6, Service: 8, Overall: 7).

Madrid and Barcelona May '04

Our two weeks in Spain got off to the usual bad start compliments of Thai Airways. Flew first class, which means they must torture customers in economy to justify the first class premium fare. Flight was packed through Rome, then empty for the final Rome to Madrid leg, but overall about a fifteen hour flight, and no movies, which I think is a record, even for Thai.

We're staying at the Ritz in Madrid for about ten days, then spending a few days in Barcelona. The Ritz was opened one hundred years ago when the Spanish king needed someplace suitably grand to house the guests for his upcoming wedding. It has had a fairly stuffy reputation since then, probably since it barred celebrities, bullfighters, men without ties and women without dresses from the hotel until about twenty years ago. But the driver who brought us to the hotel had just dropped Lenny Kravitz off there, so it must have loosened up considerably.

The lobby photographs well, but is unimpressive, far too cramped to be grand. The exterior is nice though, and the location across from the Prado museum is very convenient. And there's a great garden in back for drinks and dinner in good weather, but unfortunately the weather pretty much sucked for most of the trip.