Wed, Jun 1 We packed up and left the Parador at 9:30. It was pretty chilly - in the high 30s when we got up and there was a new sprinkling of snow on the mountains. We headed south through the tunnels and through some lovely farm country of green and gold wheat fields. We passed through red canyons right out of New Mexico and past the convoluted rocks of Montserrat, before entering Barcelona.
We had a dress rehearsal of how to get to the airport and Renaissance Hotel when we delivered Hil last week, so we found the hotel without too much difficulty. We were using Hilary’s Premiere Executive points and so got ushered into the executive part of the hotel and got a half bottle of white wine, nuts, and fruit delivered to our room as a welcoming present!
We then had to return our car to the mysterious Victoria Car Rental people in the Terminal 1 parking structure.. We had complex instructions on how to enter the airport and which color-coded area to park in. The garage is amazingly complex and we were trapped on the wrong floor, but managed to find an empty space, park and lock up. We were told to put the key in an envelope along with the parking ticket and location of the car and drop it into the slightly open window of a van parked in space 306 on the second floor in the blue section. We found the van and slipped the envelope into the window and left…who know what happens then??…But it was half the price of the major car rental companies!
We then walked a long ways to the hotel van pickup area…no seating, very windy…we waited and waited…people came and left but no Renaissance van. After 45 minutes we gave up and went back to the terminal and got a cab from the taxi stand. Big mistake! We thought we had communicated that we wanted to go to the Airport Renaissance, but after a bit we realized we were headed downtown! We alerted the cabbie who managed to maneuver us on surface streets back to the hotel. The meter read about 16 Euros…quite a bit for a 2 mile ride to a hotel next door to the airport. Bob went in to the hotel to get someone to negotiate the fee….but, and this is really weird…the hotel person came out and showed us that there is a little sticker in tiny print only legible with a magnifier from the inside of the taxi window that says that taking a taxi from the airport has a minimum fee of 20 euros…almost $30! Well, we had to pay, but rather irritating to be stuck with this because the hotel’s van was tardy!
Anyway, we finally got back to our room and had our wine and fruit and organized our gear so we’ll be ready to grab our executive free breakfast at six tomorrow and grab the van (it better be there!!) to the airport!
Grabbed a hamburger and soup and beer in the bar for supper.
Wed, Jun 1 We packed up and left the Parador at 9:30. It was pretty chilly - in the high 30s when we got up and there was a new sprinkling of snow on the mountains. We headed south through the tunnels and through some lovely farm country of green and gold wheat fields. We passed through red canyons right out of New Mexico and past the convoluted rocks of Montserrat, before entering Barcelona.
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