These days are tough. It’s the day before you leave, and you’re traveling back to where you’ll fly from to get home. I recognize that if the trip is planned differently, these days don’t exist, but trying to maximize time and minimize travel risk they’re almost a necessity.

This morning was easy, a leisurely breakfast at Biomio was the right was to start. They are literally the nicest people and the food is exceptional.

We had to grab an Uber from our place in Seville to the train station so we could get back to Madrid. There was no chance we were going to ask anyone to make the same trip they had coming in, so we walked over near the cathedral and picked up our Uber at La Puerta de Leon of the Alcazar.

Our driver was the sweetest lady. She spoke no English but enjoyed talking to us through Google Translate via Car Play when we didn’t understand some of her thickly accented Spanish. After she asked where we were from and we told her Las Vegas, she had no idea where that was. I showed her a picture of the Strip, still nothing. It was pretty neat to meet someone who had no idea what Vegas was.

The train ride was uneventful, other than being significantly shorter than expected. We walked from the train station to the Hilton Atocha and checked into our room. Thanks Hilton and Diamond Status for the upgraded room.

We lounged in the room while I called to try and shuffle flights for more of a layover in London to ensure our connection. Because BA wouldn’t shift us to the earlier flight to London from Madrid, American offered to shift us away from our existing routing to a Madrid-Miami-Vegas route. For the bargain price of $2200 each. In coach. Compared to our $900 fare. No thanks. So we decided we would just plan on running if needed.

Just one thing to do: walk to get the nun cookies. So we did. And what an experience. You walk up to a wooden door. You go through into a dark hallway, walk a bit into a slightly brighter room with a partitioned lazy Susan sticking through the wall. You place money for the cookies you want on the lazy Susan which you then spin around and when it come back, there are cookies. Like magic. Unless, like my daughter you try a short the nuns by a Euro and they yell at you. In fairness, the cookies she wanted were cheaper, but not available. So the Euro short wasn’t intentional. The cookies, upon sampling later, were good, but a bit dry for taste.

Since we were so close, it seemed like it was necessary for us to swing back through San Miguel Market for empanadas and sangria. So we did. And it was awesome.

We’d been told by a friend that we should try shopping at Primark for great deals. So we walked up to Gran Via to check it out. Total insanity. And not for us. We didn’t see anything we had to have. But it was funny to see all the knock off Las Vegas Raiders stuff.

The walk back to the hotel was uneventful. And we all crashed. It seemed like a good idea to lay on the bed to write this post, apparently my body had other ideas.

At dinner time we didn’t even want to go out. Uber Eats delivered some Italian food and a bottle of wine. We ate and went to bed not long after.

We had a good day, low key, and final visit with Madrid before packing up to head home.