Welcome to Scotland!

We had some time to spare before we had to drop off our car rental at Madrid airport, so we did a small detour to the 11th century town of Sepulveda.

Then we drove to the airport and waited for our flight to Scotland!

The town of Sepulveda is first mentioned in historical documents dating to the year 940 AD. And there are two very old churches, one dating 1093 and the other in the 12th century. Sepulveda is a very old town!

View of Sepulveda from the parking lot.

Fountain near the center.

There was a street market going on in the center.

Built in the 10th century, the castillo now houses the town hall.

Scenery in Sepulveda.

It's a very photogenic town.

With a lot of different viewpoints.

Statue of Spanish bullfighter Victor Barrio who died in 2016 at age 29.

We love wandering around these ancient towns.

The church dates back to the year 1150 according to an inscription on the tower.

Click on the photo to make it full size, then click again so you can see the detail!

There is a deep gorge in behind the town.

As I said, there are a lot of different viewpoints!

Another church.

Built in 1093, but extensively renovated in the 13th century.

Ruth, admiring the town.

But it was time to get going! We still had an hour and a half to drive to Madrid, and of course we weren't sure what the traffic would be like getting to the airport. It turned out to be fine, but better to be early than late. Besides, we have no problem wasting time in an airport.

Especially when we have free lounge passes through our Scotiabank Passport Visa credit card!

Ruth was pleased with her gin and tonic!

Madrid airport.

The airport seemed abnormally quiet. We were through security in a breeze, and the whole gate section of Terminal 1 was fairly quiet. 

As we were sitting in the lounge, I got the first notification from easyJet that our flight was delayed by half an hour. As usually happens, by the time it was ready for boarding, it was actually an hour late. We don't have a problem with that, but we'd prefer it was three hours late! European regulations say that you get well compensated if your flight is over three hours late arriving, and we have experienced that bonus in the past.

But, you only get apologies if it's an hour late. So of course we were also an hour late landing. But we were quickly through immigration. It's all automated now for some passports and you don't even talk to a border officer.

Welcome to Scotland! Scotland is not a new country for us, as we were here way back in 1987.

There is a local bus that would have taken us from the airport to our accommodation, but unfortunately  it stops running at midnight. It took some time, but we finally got an Uber to take us to our accommodation. It was about 8 kms (5 miles) and it cost £13 ($24.10 CAD, $17.65 USD) for the ride.

We had booked a room in a private house and our host hid the key outside because she knew we'd be late. The room is tiny, but the bed is comfortable and we have the use of the common areas of the house. Edinburgh accommodation is very expensive, and the $CAD is very weak so we think we did quite well at £60 ($111 CAD, $81.30 USD) per night for a three night stay.

It's a little chilly here... it was only 7C (42F) and windy when we were stood outside waiting for our Uber. But they are calling for a high of 15C (60F), so that will be okay for getting out during the day. It's a bit overcast, but they're not calling for rain until Saturday.

We are headed out for a walk!

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