brewsalablog

After the touching down from the shortest and most comfortable flight of the whole trip we checked in with the tourist desk for our Berlin Welcome Cards. These cards gave us unlimited rides on public transit and came with a handy booklet of attractions which honored the cards for discounts. We never did seek out any of those discounts, but the transit pass was pivotal for getting around Berlin. This was especially true since riding public transit appeared always to be purely on the honor system! But a quick ride on the U2 from the central hub of Alexanderplatz got us swiftly to the central neighborhood of Eberswalder and our AirBnb.

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We telephoned for a taxi — itself a minor adventure in utilizing country codes on a cell phone and communicating our location to the fast-talking Spanish-speaking dispatcher — after realizing we’d hopelessly missed the public transit option to get to the train station in time. But by mid-afternoon we’d arrived in Barcelona at our glorious, wrap-around rooftop terrace apartment known as “the Attic!”

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We strongly believe there needs to be planned downtime during extended traveling — and we were so lucky that Yana found the perfect Airbnb in Valencia, Spain, just for this purpose.

We basically teleported there — okay, not quite, but we were traveling faster that we ever had on land: 300 kph (186mph) by train from Madrid!

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After a short layover in Brussels, we landed in Madrid and took the Metro train at rush hour to Sol, the central neighborhood where we would be staying. A tourist kiosk furnished us with a helpful map of central Madrid that enabled us to navigate the few blocks through relative chaos to our AirBnB and which would come in handy throughout our stay. The elevator there was just big enough to accommodate us both and our bags single file, but the room was utterly charming with a splendid balcony view of the narrow street below.

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