One Man Travelling...

A friend of mine in Portugal, whom I shall not now get to visit, showed me some photographs of quarrying in his area. This prompted me to look at some photographs I took at a "Marble and Granite" stonemasons in Colmenar de Oreja. This is one of the seven cities which, along with the capital, make up Madrid. I was trying to enter items on my blogs in date order but time and tide as we say in England; so I thought that I would include this on my new web page. After I arrived in Madrid at the, almost, end of my epic train journey in July 2017, I went to stay with my friends from Tenerife who also have a house in Los Arroyos, El Escorial. I had visited this location before when I was staying in Tenerife and have lots of adventures to relate eventually. To the point, José Luis was born in Colmenar and was in the process of updating a house there. I travelled through with him on several occasions giving me an opportunity to reacquaint myself with this wonderful and histor...

My journey across Europe is almost complete. I have arrived in Spain to stay with friends from Tenerife in a community called Los Arrayos. Situated approximately 60 km to the west of Madrid it falls under the umbrella of El Escorial. I say almost complete as I have some exploring to do here then I am off to France, yes by train, on the 20th December for six months. We are in the high ground with the mountain ranges in the distance, the campo between here and El Escorial spread out before us and breathtaking views as we descend to the plain and on to Madrid itself. Once again I shall be travelling by bus and train. My amigo Jose Luis has helped me to obtain travel passes for the Madrid area and beyond which make the journeys quite economical. The Madrid conurbation is served by both green buses and trains whilst Madrid itself is served by blue buses and the metro. The systems interlink on the ground and by ticket. I have a red card containing a computer chip. As we are about as ...