As all things must, our time in Spain was coming to an end.
We had booked our ticket during QR's J sale last year for about $3,500 each (bought through their Singapore site) - plus $320 for ScootBiz to Singapore.The QR routing was Singapore - Doha - Bacelona (24 nights) - Doha (2 nights) - Perth. If we had used QR from Perth it would have cost us about another $2,000 each. We initially had slightly different plans for Spain which made the in/out at Barcelona logical. In the end it would have been better for us to arrive Barcelona and leave Madrid, but the change fees ruled that out.
The economy cabin on the Madrid - Barcelona train. By the time the train left all the seats were full, and baggage piled everywhere. This was far and away the dearest train fare we bought, costing 85 Euros for the two of us. But as it is about 600 km - 2 hr 51 m - between the two cities and the train often hit 300 km/h it wasn't too bad.
Looking at the landscape you can see why lots of "cowboy" movies are shot in Spain.
There were some interesting sights on the way.
This is the cafe in Barcelona Sants Station where we bought our first meal in Spain. So, it seemed fair to be the last place we bought food as well. The prices are a little dearer than outside but not too bad for a place like this. And they tasted nice.
The Renfe fare includes a "suburban" trip at the start and end of your journey. You type the special code on your ticket in at the local station and a local ticket will be printed out. We took the airport train and stopped at a hotel nearby that had a "free" shuttle service..
We were at the airport at about 06:00 as we were cautious about the processing times at Barcelona - it was actually very quick with pleasant staff. Then we used the "Generic" Business Lounge. It was fine - clean, quiet and with a reasonable selection of light breakfast food. For the first hour or so it was mostly occupied by Australians waiting for the QR flight but started to get busier about 07:30.
A Vueling A319(?) taking off.
A lot of the airport apron was ripped up as they installed new piping, so we were bused the 600 metres or so to the plane - no special J buses.Stairs were at the front and rear doors but everyone was loaded via the front stairway. We were once again on the leased LATAM B787
Special J class boarding - not
But it did give us a good look at the engine. I remember in the 1970's, on the ,apron at Perth Airport, standing alongside B707's with RR or P&W engines and thinking how big they were - how wrong I was.
Our final view of Spain