I spent an hour trying to figure out what I was going to do. Formulate a plan!
What do you do when you only have four hours in the city before you have to head to the airport, it would be great if the four hours was not before anything opens. After much deliberation I left my bag in the locker and hopped on the subway into the centre of Madrid near the Royal Palace. I got out of the subway at the Opera station which had me coming up into Madrid in the Plaza de Isabel II. I have three hours downtown at 11 I am going to print out my boarding pass at an Internet café and then hop on the train back to the bus depot it was 45 minutes from downtown to the bus depot and 45 minutes from downtown to the airport, however I saw it is only 10 minutes but Uber to the airport from the bus depot so I left my bag at the bus depot and I'm willing to go back !!
Arriving in the Plaza de Isabel II it felt like it was 5:30 in the morning, it was in fact 8:10 but dawn was breaking and there was no one around. The morning birds were singing the plaza was empty just a few coffee places open and the only people on the streets were people going home from the bars. The train was full with revellers heading home at the end of the night.
I found an audio tour app and am heading towards monastery that sounds fascinating. The monastery opened at 10am so I went exploring in the meantime.
At 9:30 in the plaza mayor and the restaurants are being opened, tablecloth's are being put on and as it is Sunday it looks like there's going to be a market under the covered walkways around the edges of the Plaza. The plaza is large and throughout history with used for concerts, gatherings, beheadings and eventually as a marketplace. It burnt down and was rebuilt, and was renovated many times over the last 500 years and its current incarnation is a large square apartments on the outside. I was listening to the audio tour says it's a Philatelic and Numismatistic market.
Very cool!!!
I ended up returning to the monastery at 10am: The Monasterio de las Descalzas Reales and I went on a tour it is an amazing cloistered convent.
Wikipedia says: The Monasterio de las Descalzas Reales, literally the "Monastery of the Royal Barefooted", resides in the former palace of King Charles I of Spain and Isabel of Portugal. Their daughter, Joanna of Austria, founded this convent of nuns of the Poor Clare order in 1559. Throughout the remainder of the 16th century and into the 17th century, the convent attracted young widowed or spinster noblewomen. Each woman brought with her a dowry. The riches quickly piled up, and the convent became one of the richest convents in all of Europe. Stunning inside and I will post photos of my post cards when I get a chance.
Once the tour was finished it was time to find an Internet café to print out my boarding pass. €15 fee if you haven't printed out your boarding pass before you get to the flight. Ryanair!
I was on my way through Madrid to the only open at 11 AM on a Sunday, however I soon realized my day was leaching away from me so I went straight to the bus depot. Surprisingly I found an Internet café directly above the subway and my boarding pass for $.50.
I went to get back into the subway, was about to buy a ticket and I was told that the airport subway line was closed due to construction. Time was short and I was unsure about the alternate route so I went upstairs and caught a taxi. The lovely female taxi driver, I'm not sure if I have ever had a female taxi driver before, charged me the set price of €30 and dropped me off at the airport.
And I mean literally dropped as I fell out of her cab knees first onto the sidewalk. My shoe got caught on a backpack strap and my feet remained in the taxi the rest of me left. I fell at the feet of four very kind gentleman who were not expecting that at all. But they helped me up and I was off to re-organize my bag before going through security.