Corre a Ritmo de Rock'n'Roll --- Running a marathon in Madrid, April 2012

We fly to Madrid on Finnair, a national airline of Finland. We have a ten-hour stopover in Helsinki. The archipelago in Gulf of Finland looks gorgeous at sunrise.

Just a couple of days before Helsinki has received quite a bit of snow. The weather forecast says it is going to be chilly but sunny today. However, at 6am. it looks as miserable as most Spring days in Helsinki: wet and grey.

We head to Cafe Tintin Tango for an early morning sauna and breakfast. There we also meet Tomi's friend Jouni. Rest of the day is spent shopping but we don't buy much. While Tomi meets his colleagues in the computer science department, Tei has lunch with her friend Tiina.

We arrive at Madrid Barajas airport around 8pm. but it takes us some time to get to our airport hotel. It seems that the taxi driver just takes us around before "finding" the hotel.

We stay the first night at the airport hotel High Tech, and have a quick dinner before going to sleep.

Tomato salad, and house salad with tuna. Tuna seems to be a new staple in salads here in Spain since our previous visit. Our friends tell that it makes the salad more fancy.

We pick up the rental car from Barajas terminal 1, and start our drive to Chinchon, where our friends live.

We follow the GPS device's instructions to Chinchon. It does not ask us to take any U-turns but recalculates the route whenever we deviate from the planned route. It happens quite often since the device's conception of the number of exits in roundabouts does not always match the reality.

We head for a short run as we learn there is a nice unpaved and flat pedestrian path / bicycle route from Chinchon to the next village, Colmenar de Oreja. It makes a nice 7K run.

However, it is only about +9C and very, VERY windy.

We are also rained on in Colmenar de Oreja.

Conditions are kind of schizophrenic: the wind is cold but the sun is warm; the sky is dark but the sun is bright.

Plaza Mayor --- when there is no bull fighting arena, it is used as a parking lot.

A wall of tiles from all around the world. Finland was included too.

There is really no suburbs in this little town but the countryside starts right away

You can see Madrid in the horizon on the left.

A medieval castle, unfortunately run down and closed to the public these days.

Next morning we hop in our rental car and drive east to Cuenca, which is famous of the hanging houses.

We enjoy the vast open landscape.

The road undulating among the hills opens us new panoramic views after each turn.

Entering the historic part of Cuenca.

Before seeing the hanging houses, we need to find something to eat. By the parking garage where we leave our car there is a theatre and a theatre cafe. Even if the cafe kitchen is not officially open for lunch yet (at noon), we can order some delicious Spanish food: ...

Parador de Cuenca. Paradores are hotels in historic buldings, monasteries, palaces and castles throughout Spain.

Casas Colgadas (the "hanging houses") were built over a rock above Hoz del Huecar (the Huecar River Gorge) between 13th and 15th centuries. Today the houses host a restaurant and a museum of abstract art.

Puente de San Pablo (Saint Paul Bridge) was originally built between 1533 and 1589 in stone, but it collapsed and was rebuilt in 1902 in iron. This bridge is not for those with fear of heights.

A modern science museum looms behind the old houses.

We visit Museo de Arte Abstracto Espanol (the museum of abstract art). It closes at 2pm., so we only have an hour and a half to explore.

The painting on right is a portrait of Brigitte Bardot (known only as BB when we were kids)

From Cuenca we take a different route and some smaller roads back to Chinchon.

We get some rain, too. But there is practically no traffic like in many other roads we've traveled (except when approaching Madrid at rush hour)

On our way we notice that we are near the archaeological park of the ancient ruins of a Roman city Segobriga, a visit our friends have recommended. This is quite a remarkable site given its age; the development of this city started sometime in the first century B.C.

Bus loads of tourists are watching a play in an ancient theater.

This amphitheater seated 5500 spectators enjoying battles between human gladiators, and fights between men and other animals.

Somehow the ruins seem so small and tight it is hard to imagine there were 3-D buildings at some point. They could not have been very spacious. The wall that surrounded Segobriga was only 1300 meters long.

We climb all the way to the top to see the ruins of Acropolis. It is so windy that standing stable and taking pictures is hard.

A view over the Spanish Meseta. We really enjoy the open view.

A 3-D model of the ancient Segobriga.

We return to Chinchon via Villarubia de Santiago, a village we visited in our trip in 2007.

Now the windmills are in full whirl.

It is an idyllic drive from Villarubia to Colmenar de Oreja on a winding road over the range.

From Colmenar de Oreja to Chinchon. Again the sky is quite dramatic. However, this time the temperature is closer to +20 degrees of Celsius.

We have not seen too many bicyclists on the roads. Perhaps the wind does not make it too appealing to hit the roads ...

Early next morning --- that is Saturday, a day before our big day --- we go for a short run around downtown Chinchon. It is hilly enough, and we are about 700 meters above the sea level.

We visit Bodegas Andres Morate, a local organic vineyard. They have three reds and one white -- we get one of each and a two-liter canister of organic olive oil. That oil is so delicious and flavorful we could eat it with a spoon.

Then we go for a walk on the nearby trails.

We walk the trail quite a while, and eventually end up somewhere that looks like a private property, and meet this huge and fiery dog. Fortunately it is tightly leashed. We take a path up that we think is an exit, but find ourselves in a dead end. There is a fence all around. After some looking around we find a way to climb over the fence and voila, we are back on the trail we came from.

The grass is very green and the sky very blue criss-crossed with lines made by jet planes; Madrid Barajas is not that far from here.

After the walk and a hefty pasta lunch at our friends' place we drive to Madrid to pick up our race packets at Expodepor at "Pabellon de La Pipa" in Casa De Campo.

We make several attempts to approach the Expo following and not following the GPS instructions, but always take a wrong turn or exit. It takes two extra hours to reach the place before we figure out how to get there. The GPS was almost right most of the time.

From the Expo it is an easy drive to the hotel Hospes Madrid at Plaza de la Independencia. Even the GPS can't fail.

Downtown Madrid is idyllic.

Puerta de Alcala.

Our room at Hospes Madrid. The service in this place is superb.

A view from our room at Hospes Madrid.

Puerta de Alcala at Plaza de la Independencia.

Clear night sky. We expect a cold morning.

A Real Madrid - Barca game on, so each bar, restaurant showing the game attracts a bit of audience outside. Between this picture and the next, we have run the Rock'n'Roll Marathon Madrid. What a pleasant experience that was. Since the marathon starts as late as 9am. we order a light breakfast to the room: juice with yoghurt and musli.

At the marathon start it is about +7C and in the end no more than +14C. It is sunny though. The route is beautiful, very runnable with long gentle hills, and the cheering crowd amazing. We also enjoy the bands along the route: there are more than 20 of them. We both run our personal bests :)

After the run we take a quick shower (we are not exhausted at all!) and head out for lunch. We choose El Barril de Recoletos in the neighborhood, and have some heavy protein: lamb and a beef steak. Then we return to the hotel to pack and drive back to Chinchon.

On Monday we first do some shopping for snacks to take back home: anis flavored cookies and Limoncillo crema. Before lunch we take a two-hour hike on the nearby trails.

It is a gorgeous sunny day, and comfortably warm or cool, which ever way you want to look at it.

This pool people used to wash their clothes in. They don't do it anymore, but even if the water is moving the water is full of algae.

Olive trees.

A lizard.

The white sand looks like gypsum or snow in the bright daylight.

Unfortunately we don't find the loop the trail makes, but turn back the same way. On the positive side, we spot a fox.

After the walk we have lunch in Cafe de Iberia at Plaza Mayor. We share dishes of asparagus, ham, chorizo, cheese, shrimp, pork, some salad with endives and blue cheese. Good but not phenomenal. Also our seating on the cramped balcony is not the most convenient. We learn that the restaurant can charge more if they can seat us outside for a fancier experience.

nope

Going back home in Singapore via Helsinki again. We start our drive to Madrid Barajas before the sunrise.

We spend eight hours in our capital enjoying some nice beer in Pullman at the main railway station, meeting Tei's friend Tiina again, and then having dinner at Patrona, a newly opened Mexican restaurant that Tei has learned about in a food blog she follows.

In Patrona we we start with an appetizer set with guacamole, ceviche, pineapple salsa, and refried beans(?) with some home made tortilla chips.

Then we have chicken with mole sauce.

We don't have notes about the food, and no menus are available online, so we can't tell (or remember) what this is: probably something with mushrooms and cheese. Everything was super delicious, though.

Angry birds accompany us when we leave Finland.

When approaching Singapore the skies get dark.

Eventually we see some sun. It is late afternoon in Singapore.