Madrid was the last stop of Odyssey’s Unlimited tour of Portugal and Southern Spain, and so they treated us to a three-night stay at the Wellington Hotel and Spa, a very fancy 5-star hotel. The likes of John Malkovitch, Ernest Hemingway and various others have stayed at this lovely Art Deco spot.
Unfortunately, these fancy hotels have a decided drawback. As they are used to catering to people for whom money is no object, they treat everyone that way, and are surprisingly rigid when you point out that what they are offering is completely outside your budget. Deciding to spend my free day visiting El Escorial, the monastery-palace built by Philip II of Spain in the sixteenth century, I went to the concierge to arrange tickets.
They had two options
~ A 5 hour tour that cost €880/person.
Or
~ An 8-hour tour that cost €1180/person.
I was forced to explain to the young man and woman that this was completely outside my budget, and the only reason why I was staying at their lovely hotel is because I was with Odyssey’s Unlimited (which had presumably been given some sort of discount.)
I asked for a cheaper option.
The young woman (older than the young man) was surprisingly rigid. When I suggested that I go by train instead of using their private driver, she told me that if I did that, they wouldn’t be able to “control” where I was. Also, she said, the train station is some distance from El Escorial, and I would need a taxi, which (according to her) is hard to find in that remote area of Madrid (she described it as a small village). Lastly, she claimed that I wouldn’t be able to find an option that was much cheaper than their cheapest rate of €880/person.
Of course, I didn’t believe her.
Returning to my room, I got onto the computer and soon found the Tourist Information for El Escorial, where I bought a ticket for €20.
The next step was to find out how to get there. I checked the distance from the train station to the palace, and yes it is about a five-mile walk. But when I typed in “what is the best way of getting to El Escorial” I was told it was by bus. Apparently there are buses that run from the bus station in Madrid to the palace every 15 minutes. The cost? €3-€5!
I next called up the Odysseys tour guide to tell him all about this, as he had recommended the concierge service at the hotel. He told me he was sorry to hear they were offering these eye-watering options, and agreed with me it was ridiculous to be paying so much money.
I asked him about the bus station, and he said it was perfectly safe for me to go there. He also suggested that rather than taking the metro from the hotel to the bus station (which would involve a change of trains) that I take a taxi, because taxis in Spain are cheap and it would probably cost me about €10.
When I added all this up
~ €20 for the ticket
~€5 for the audio guide
~ €20 for the taxi (both ways)
~€10 for the bus (both ways)
I ended up with a Grand Total of €55!
Beware of fancy hotels!
