Spain Series #2

I mentioned yesterday that we hit snow on the way to Madrid. The trip started easily enough. We left the house just before sunrise and headed southwest to meet up with the A-10 autoroute near Châtellerault. We did that to save a bit on the very pricey tolls in France.

From central France to central Spain: our route.

We stopped at a rest stop to eat some lunch we had prepared for the trip and to give Collette a chance to get out of the car. As we headed on south toward Bordeaux, it started to snow. Ken was suffering a major allergy attack in the car and was miserable. The snow was light, so we didn't think anything of it.

As we got around Bordeaux and continued toward the Spanish border, we heard on the radio that the mountain passes were becoming hard to navigate due to snow and that trucks were being stopped at the border. Cars could go on through, though, so we figured we'd be ok.

Part of the Madrid skyline from our hotel room.

As we got up into the mountains after San Sebastian, the snow got worse and worse. It was very difficult to see, nearly white-out conditions. Then the traffic came to a halt. There we were, tired, with a dog in the back seat, frantically tuning the radio but unable to come up with a station in French. Neither of us speaks Spanish.

We had no idea what was going on. We thought, at one point, that we might be spending the night in the car. Ça commence bien (this is starting off well), we said.

Another shot from the room.

The traffic did start moving again after a while and we debated turning around at the next exit and heading back into France. One of us wanted to go back and the other wanted to press on. I won't give away who held which position. But as we debated, we just kept going. Traffic was moving very slowly, and stopped at times for fifteen minutes to a half hour. After a while, it felt like we were going downhill, so we figured we had made it over the pass. Why go back?

Eventually we made it down out of the mountains and the snow was behind us. We sped our way southwards toward Madrid, realizing that because of our delay it would be dark before we arrived. I think we pulled in around nine p.m. or so, found the hotel, and got checked in. Sue had called the hotel a couple of times before we got there. Since she didn't have a phone in her apartment, she had to go out to a phone booth to call each time. We had no way to call her back to let her know we made it.

Our hotel's neighborhood, a mix of offices and apartment buildings.

We decided to go to her apartment. We knew where it was, at least on the map; it was about a five minute drive from the hotel. Of course, we proceeded to get lost in a maze of one-way thoroughfares and back streets and went in circles for a while. Street signs, if they were there, were well hidden or invisible. I took to looking for subway entrances to figure out where we were. It was dark, after all, and asking for directions was not an option. But again, we made our way there and circled the neighborhood a few times before we found a parking space a few blocks away from Sue's building.

I think it was around eleven when we finally rang Sue's bell. She let me in while Ken stayed on the street with Collette. She was in her nightgown and nearly asleep, but she was a good sport and got dressed and came out for a late walk with us while we told her of our snowy adventure.

From the hotel magazine.

We looked for a place to eat. It was prime time for Madrid restaurants - the Spanish eat very late - and places looked crowded and lively. We hadn't eaten since lunch and were hungry. We soon found out that the Spanish don't generally let dogs in restaurants like the French do. It was too cold to get some take out and eat outdoors. And Sue's American roommates would not have appreciated a dog in the apartment, especially at midnight. What to do?