As I pulled my gear together in the Madrid Hostel, I was really looking forward to this flight. I was heading south! I was heading to a warmer climate, and I was very excited.
Getting to and from the airport in Madrid is kind of straight forward, and mostly easy, because many trains and buses head there.
I thing I did learn about the journey to the airport, is if you arrive by train/ metro there is a surcharge included in your ticket. So the trip back to the airport cost EUR5.00 but the trip when I arrived cost EUR3.50.
I headed to Sol Metro. It was about 10 minutes walk.
It was possible to buy a ticket from the machine with cash or credit card.
The metro to the airport took about 1 hour in total from Sol.
I noticed someone getting caught out for not paying the surcharge, so they had to pay the additional sum at the booth before they could exit.
It was pretty clearly signposted to T2.
Going through Security was seamless and fast, and I was soon on the other side.
The coffee did not look very good, so I went without, and just headed to the gate.
The flight was on time and yay! I could bring my suitcase on! (not like Ryanair recently).
It was a very full flight and we were off on time.
It was a smooth take-off over Madrid.
We flew over Fuertaventura.
The flight was about 2.5 hours to Gran Canaria.
The flight arrived on time and disembarking was smooth.
I headed straight to the bus stop to catch a bus into town.
Woah, the humidity hit me as I headed outside. Awesome. It was clearly signposted all the way.
There was an Express Coach into the city.
And then I had to change to a local bus to get to my Airbnb.
Unfortunately my Google Maps had saved the address wrong, so I ended up at a completely different address. But luckily I figured it out, and the real address was 7 minutes walk from there.
Arriving at the Airbnb I quickly learned that it wasn’t the Airbnb I was expecting. It was an apartment, rented out like a hotel, with a meet-and-greet service, weekly cleaners, and many visitors coming and going.
I really don’t like those Airbnbs, especially if I’m traveling on my own. I feel they go against the spirit of the original Airbnb idea. But I decided to just deal with it and see how the next 2 weeks would go…