Jerez; Wednesday, 09 March, 2011

In spite of being five minutes late pushing back, and the usual queue to get onto the runway at Heathrow, the plane touched down in Madrid 20 minutes early, and even with the massive hike from the satellite terminal to the main building I was still standing by the baggage belt at the same time I should have been landing. Unfortunately, the baggage took a little bit of time to come round, and by the time it had I had just missed the shuttle bus to the hotel, so I had a 30 minute wait in the airport forecourt.

After checking in and dropping off my stuff I picked the shuttle bus back up and went back to the airport to catch the metro into town to have a look around.

I had a wander around the royal palace and Sol areas, before heading over to Plaza Mayor for a bite to eat, even managing to almost get into Spanish habits by not starting dinner until 9:30.

After a bit more wandering I headed back to the airport and once again just managed to miss the shuttle bus. Thankfully, I had left enough time that there was one final one of the night, so I was able to wait for that and got back to the hotel just before midnight, and a well-earned sleep.