We took the 14:25 out of Madrid
On January 1, 2022, Leslie, our daughter-in-law, drove us to Raleigh-Durham International Airport to catch our 6 pm flight, the first leg of our leaving. We said tearful good-byes and rolled our luggage into the airport. We were bound for Philadelphia where we would change planes and fly overnight to Madrid. The flight to Philly took an hour and a half. The flight across the Atlantic took seven hours and crossed six time zones. We arrived in Madrid at 9 am, the day after we'd left Raleigh. We caught a tram to Puerto de Atocha, the main train station in Madrid. We whiled away a few hours in a coffee shop and pacing about. We'd packed light: two wheeled, carry-on bags; one large duffle bag (also on wheels); a computer bag; and a personal bag. Around 4:15 we boarded the train to Alicante. We'd taken the route last year when we visited Alicante and enjoyed the ride through the high, desert plateau of central Spain. Our experiences on the trains in 2022 were one of the reasons ...
