The weather in Granada and Madrid was good today. I only know about the early morning weather in Granada because we travelled from there to Madrid.
We had finished most of our packing in Granada last night, but here is alway some last minute backpack stuffing of electronics and sitting on suitcases that must be accomplished before we actually set out.
It was cool and dark when we headed down all the Granada steps for the last time on this trip. Our luggage made a lot of noise as we rolled our bags on the stone streets on the way to Plaza Nueva. We had no trouble finding a taxi there even at 7:00am. The trip to Fredrick Garcia Lorca airport was about 30 minutes and when we got there we thought it might not be the right place because there were so few people around. Once inside we learned that there would only be 3 flights in the morning, including ours. I noticed that a flight to Milan in the afternoon had already been cancelled.
Our flight to Madrid was about 45 minutes and smooth as could be. The plane wasn’t packed and our bags came off at about the same time we arrived at the baggage claim. In fact only 4 or 5 bags total were delivered. It looked to me as if most people just brought carry-ons.
The taxi dropped us off about a block from the apartment. I’m getting pretty used to the taxi drivers’ arm waves and “Por ahí”s (over there) when they can’t get any closer. Our apartment is very nice and we had a good conversation with our hostess, Teresa. She explained everything about the area and the apartment. Then we moved on to the COVID-19 situation. We learned that starting tomorrow all Madrid schools, from kindergarten through university will be closed for at least a couple of weeks. Gatherings of more than 1,000 people have been “suspended” in Madrid. Flights to and from Italy have all been cancelled.
There are very few cases of COVID-19 in Spain, but the authorities are trying to prevent another situation like Italy. There doesn’t seem to be any panic. The Spanish government, unlike ours, seems to have settled on a consistent messaging approach. We will just stay vigilant.
the oldest theater in Madrid at the end of the plaza,
right around the corner from the apartment
We have stayed in the Barrio de las Letras before, so we feel right at home in the area. We went to a local market to stock up on bread, cheese, and orange juice for in-house breakfasts. We had lunch at the civilized time of 2:30, so we won’t go out to dinner although we are surrounded by restaurants and tapas bars.