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Madrid, my stay
I took good care of myself
and of the ants.
The largest colony of ants worldwide is named after the advancing Argentinean ant and stretches for 6000 kilometers along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. This is proven by investigating dna samples. And the weight of all the ants in the world is about the same as that of mankind. So how many ants are there ???
I had a beer at the bar next to the camping.
There was a bottle of wine "Vina Pedrosa".
That was a nice reminder to spanish rider Dany Pedrosa who has stopped MotoGP racing at the end of the 2018 season.
He was there from 2001 on until 2018 and always was a great rider,
although he did not manage to be a MotoGP worldchampion.
Since the next day would be a fine day I decided to visit Madrid immediately. If possible I would visit the town at least one more time anyway. Then in the Netherlands there is a saying "Hebben is hebben, en krijgen is de kunst" 🖱️.
So the next day I took the metro and was in the center in just about 20 minutes.
It was a regular weekday but there was a huge crowd in town.
Madrid being the capital of Spain has some 3.2 million inhabitants and the total area of Madrid has some 6.4 million.
So some people more or less is not really a problem.
I read an article that explained that Madrid has changed the priority of the car in the center.
To the suprise of the decisionmakers there have been only few protests against banning the car more.
On the contrary, most people are happy with the relaxed atmosphere.
You can indeed walk and walk and walk in Madrid with only very few cars hindering you.
However there is a new problem and it's called the electric step.
This bakery in the center of Madrid is a touristic hotspot itself. Hundreds of people want to get in to see and buy the beautiful pattiserie they make. Outside it is full of people trying to get themselfs on a selfie. And indeed, how beautiful can calories look 😁.
Unfortunately my feet began to hurt already at about 15h00.
I knew there were blisters coming up and they would prevent me to walk much longer today.
So I had to decide to return to the camping quiet early.
What I had seen of Madrid I found nice but for sure not really great.
It somehow did not grab me, it has no real center and most areas and roads are too huge to give me
a some cozy feeling.
Knowing that now I would prepare a next visit in some other way, ie by first studying the whole city.
Then I would visit a tourist office to look for ie some outlined pedestrian tour.
Then there also are hardly any info panels and signs in the city center.
Here I surely must have missed a lot but fact is that that never has happened to me before.
All in all Montpellier is my number one before Pamplona and then Madrid.
After having returned at the metrostation in my suburban area it was almost dark already. I decided to first have a coffee and asked the barman if he knew of any hotel in this neighborhood. He was not sure but thought there were 3 hotels just about 500 meters uphill. Despite the blisters I decided to try to find them to check if there were (affordable) rooms available. Then the noise at the camping was terrible 24/7 and I would not be able to sleep there for more then maybe 3 hours per night. It would be a pity if I had to leave after having seen Madrid just one (half) day ...
Those 500 meters were at least 1 kilometer before I saw the first hotel. It is very difficult to judge distances for most people since they always only go by car. You know, car, that is a vehicule that drives you automatically, without getting tired. And that's why cars in many countries are called auto.
I even found 4 hotels, very close to each other. But pricing started from € 80 per night and only the most expensive one had a room available starting the next day.
I have an account at
Besides that, and as usual (...), the weather forecast was not really well. Low temperatures, clouds, winds and some rainy days. Would it rain maybe no day, 1 day or 2, 3 or even 4 days ? And then there were the blisters that would prevent me from visiting whatever the next day, and maybe even the day after. I concluded that I actually would have to leave Madrid right away the next morning ... And I knew that that would probably not be possible because of those same blisters.
The next morning the situation with the blisters was terrible. But the situation with the weather was really acceptable. I therefore stayed that day to relax a bit at the camping and visit the bar there. My range that day was small but there were beautiful pine trees at the camping. So I also made a very local photographing trip. And I prepared next days bicycletrip were I was lucky to find a track through a national parc. That looked to be a great variation compared to the long tarmac roads I had cycled on so long.
But while I was "walking" around I discovered dogshit all over the campingfield. Had I been very lucky not to step into it ...
In the evening I stumbled to the suburban area again since I had discoverd a chinese restaurant there. When I returned I visited the reception to warn them about all the dogshit. The reaction was disappointing. "If campers arrive who have a dog we always tell them to not let that happen". When I told them that that was obviously not good enough, and that they should have the site cleaned the respons was nill.
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As already written in the header the camping looked very nice. But the cargotrains start riding from 01h00, the airplanes start taking of at 05h00 and the cars at 06h00. And all those deciBells are so close. The only time the situation was a little bit "normal" was from 22h00 to 01h00 ... Time to leave camping Osuna very ASAP (as soon as possible) !!! So the next day I left Madrid. I had slept about 12 hours in 3 nights (and days) ...
Shit happens !