On the road (3) A (hopefully) sunny September road trip to Spain COMPLETED - Page 20 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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There are other changes as well.
Why? Well, the world has changed. And change with it, we must. The lyrics to "We Go On" for IllumiNations say it best:
We go on to the joy and through the tears
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Moving on with the current of the years.
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To a new day, we go on.
It's time to move on and move forward.
PassPorter is a small business, and for many years it supported our family. But the world changed, print books took a backseat to the Internet, and for a long time now it has been unable to make ends meet. We've had to find new ways to support our family, which means new careers and less and less time available to devote to our first baby, PassPorter.
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So we are retiring this newsletter, as we simply cannot keep up with it. Many thanks to Mouse Fan Travel who supported it all these years, to All Ears and MousePlanet who helped us with news, to our many article contributors, and -- most importantly -- to Sara Varney who edited our newsletter so wonderfully for years and years.
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If you miss us, you can still find some of us online. Sara started a new blog at DisneyParkPrincess.com -- I strongly urge you to visit and get on her mailing list. She IS the Disney park princess and knows Disney backward and forward. And I am blogging as well at JenniferMaker.com, which is a little craft blog I started a couple of years ago to make ends meet. You can see and hear me in my craft show at https://www.youtube.com/c/jennifermaker . Many PassPorter readers and fans are on Facebook, in groups they formed like the PassPorter Trip Reports and PassPorter Crafting Challenge (if you join, just let them know you read about it in the newsletter). And some of our most devoted community members started a forum of their own at Pixie Dust Lane and all are invited over.
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I love this picture Cheryl - you have such a good eye for pictures Sorry Mark wasn't feeling well, but hopefully he gets better as your day goes on....
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Stacey
Why do these kids look so pathetic?
Find out in: A New Grade, A New House, and A Surprise!Final Thoughts 01/30
Oooh, are those trees pretty! Very nice photos (do you ever tire of hearing that? ) I sure hope Mark felt better with that headache, I know all too well how that can ruin an entire day.
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Tanya
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Tuesday 7 September – part two: from a walk in the park to the heart of the city
The highlight here is the boating lake, the Estanque and it’s an absolute gem. We slowly made our way all around it.
As you’ll see in many of the photos, on the banks of the boating lake is the Monument to Alfredo XII, erected in 1898, following Spain’s defeat at the hands of Cuba. It’s a beautiful place, both from far away and then from close up as well. It definitely made the walk worthwhile.
We headed back to the Metro again and travelled a couple of stops further along, getting off at the main station of Sol. Almost as soon as we emerged from our platform, you could see it was at the heart of a thriving city.
The picture wasn’t much different above, as the Puerta del Sol is one of the busiest squares in Madrid, hardly surprising, as many of the streets fanning off it are either home to shops or restaurants. We also couldn’t get over how many police we saw here, something which was a running theme throughout the day. They were everywhere. It was reassuring to see such a high profile presence, but I must admit I couldn’t help but wonder why on earth there were so many out and about. I guess maybe it’s just a regular thing?
The regional government is housed here and it’s actually from here that all distances in Spain are measured from, which is really neat. In the centre of the square, the statue you can see is of King Carlos III.
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Tuesday 7 September – part three: is that Mickey Mouse I see?
We headed out of the square and towards another famous one, passing some famous names on the way, including KFC and McDonalds. The closer we got to Plaza Mayor, which is literally just a couple of minutes’ walk away, the more ornate the buildings got:
Then we were into the square itself. As Mark said, it’s a bit like Venice, but without the canals and water everywhere and, in some of the architecture, I could also see shades of the Grande Place square in Brussels, Belgium. It takes a moment to take in the full splendour of this square, which dates from 1791. Over the years, it’s just about seen everything, from markets to bullfights and open air executions. Today, it’s home to lots of tourists and residents just passing the time, enjoying the sights, eating or shopping.
That’s exactly what we did next – the shopping part of it anyway. Having checked one souvenir shop earlier and seen what the prices were, I had a look in one here and found they were exactly the same. I couldn’t see the point in anymore shopping around, so we got our fridge magnet and book, but I also picked up some cow souvenirs, including one in Gaudi type material, which we had seen so much of in Barcelona. At only €8.95 ($11.65), it seemed like a bargain to me.
We wandered on from the square, stopping to admire some of the more unusual residents there – and that is Mickey Mouse you can see there.
And this is their version of Spiderman
As we turned the next corner, we found a lovely little square, which was home to Casa de la Villa, the home of the town council of Madrid.
I figured, at this point, we’d better work out where the meeting point was for the Segway tour. I had found it at home, but of course, could I find it on any map now? : of course I couldn’t! Finally we got Tim out and he pointed us in the right direction. It was literally the next square along.
It was here that Mark had “bizarre encounter of the day”, taking a photo of a street cleaning machine that had a snow plough on the front of it. The guy driving it stopped and demanded that the photo was deleted, which Mark had to do. Bit of a shame then that I turned round just after this and got this photo of Mark, which just happened to have the machine behind it.
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How cool that you could find Mickey amongst the crowd in a street in Spain!
Not too sure about those other characters, though... including the streetsweeper!
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Sorry Mark wasn't feeling well, but hopefully he gets better as your day goes on....
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Katie's graduation
) I sure hope Mark felt better with that headache, I know all too well how that can ruin an entire day. 
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PassPorter Guide Author
: I never tire of hearing that! 
It definitely made the walk worthwhile. 
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