Day 43 - Saturday 3rd June 2023

Today we'd be flying from Bilbao to Madrid but the flight wasn't until 1:35pm and so we were able to sleep in for a change.

We went down to breakfast in the hotel restaurant at about 9:30. It was another buffet breakfast. There was more choice than we've had recently at other hotels in Spain but it wasn't as good as were used to in Portugal.

It was another warm sunny day. We checked out of the hotel at 11am and caught a taxi to the airport. Although the airport is quite close, the motorway does a long wide sweep around the airport to get to departures.

When we got there, we tried to pay the driver with  a couple of different credit cards but none of them worked and so we paid by cash. Luckily we still had some Euros.

There was no queue at the check-in for business class. Both of our bags were only 22.5kg. We reached the Iberian business class lounge at about 11:45 where we had a snack and a glass of red wine.

The TV in the lounge was showing a military parade and important people dressed for the occasion. Apparently today was the national armed services day.

As we were walking towards the gate for boarding at about 1pm, we passed half a dozen security police with automatic weapons at the ready.

When we reached the departure gate, there was already a queue of people boarding. The staff member told me that it was only a small plane and so I wouldn't be allowed to take my laptop bag on board. Instead she put a tag on it and told me I would have have it stowed under the plane.

It was indeed a small plane. We caught a bus to travel the short distance to the plane and then climbed the stairs. We were in the front row of business class. I don't think there were many other business class rows.

As the plane was taxiing towards the runway, we noticed several military helicopters landing. My guess is that they'd been participating in the armed forces celebrations here.

Although it was only a very short flight from Bilbao to Madrid, they managed to serve the business class passengers with a snack and a small bottle if wine. It was quite a rush. Announcements were in both Spanish and English.

As we emerged after collecting our bags, there was a large animated crowd outside. It seemed as though they might have been waiting for a football team to arrive.

There was a long queue for taxis. However we were in time to get the hotel's shuttle bus at 3:30pm. It went from one terminal to the next to pick up passengers and eventually reached the hotel, Madrid Marriott Auditorium Hotel and Conference Centre, at about 3:50.

This is a big hotel and was buzzing with excitement. It looked as though there were graduation celebrations in the various ballrooms. There were young women in elegant formal dresses and young men in suits.

Our room was more spacious that most hotel rooms we've seen on this trip. It had a king size double bed, air conditioning with temperature control, safe, fridge, tea and coffee making facilities, a cupboard with hanging space and shelves.

It had a round table with two chairs but no work desk. There weren't many power points. The Wi-Fi speed was about 16 Mb/s down and 3 Mb/s up.

For dinner, we went to the bar near reception. We ordered a bottle of wine with a waiter but he didn't come back and the wine never turned up. Eventually I managed to flag down a waitress to place our order. We both had hamburgers followed by (very cold) flavoured ice creams accompanied by a nice bottle of red wine.

It was great atmosphere. We were in bed by 9:45pm in anticipation of an early start and a long day tomorrow.