The ancient Temple of Debod is the only piece of Egyptian architecture to be seen in Spain. Dedicated to the goddess Isis, it dates back to the 2nd century BC and originally stood in Egypt, 15km from Aswan. But in 1960, due to the construction of the Aswan High Dam, many monuments and sites of archaeological importance became under threat of being flooded and destroyed. UNESCO made an international appeal for help in saving these pieces of history and, in return for Spain helping to save the Abu Simbel temples, they were gifted the Temple of Debod by the Egyptian government. It was dismantled and rebuilt (in a different order than the original construction in Egypt) in Parque del Oeste and opened to the public in 1972.
Here’s the view in the daytime – Had I of only seen the temple during the daytime I would have been less than impressed and kicking myself for walking all that way and wasting my time when I could have been exploring a different part of the city. It would have been a place that I forgot about, not one of the highlights of Madrid.
But I got lucky and got to see it lit up at sunset and on into blue hour all thanks to travelling with a pro photographer who knows when to photograph places! Isn’t it stunning? Doesn’t it look so much more amazing at sunset than in the daytime?
There’s more though… the longer you wait, the better it becomes as the lights around the temple turn on…
Tada!
So, the mistake to avoid when visiting the Temple of Debod is only seeing it during the day time, and then not waiting long enough at sunset to see the scene changing before your eyes as the sky changes colour and the temple lights turn on!
I thoroughly enjoyed exploring this Medieval UNESCO World Heritage city back in January – So much so that it made it into 2nd place for my favourite places in Spain (Ronda taking the top spot).
Spanish train stations all have baggage screening in place, presumably to stop you packing a bomb, knife or gun in your bag, but strangely enough, the screening of people is very haphazard. There was no screening of people at Madrid, and only a few stations were scanning people with hand-held electromagnetic wands. This didn’t make sense to me as there was nothing stopping people concealing weapons under loose clothing. Coats were asked to be taken off but I never saw anyone having their bag searched so perhaps more of a deterrent than true security. The queues moved quickly and there was no need to go to the extremes of removing electronics nor any liquid restrictions as at airports so it was all relatively quick and painless!
It’s almost impossible to get on to the wrong train in Spain due to tickets being scanned as you head down to the platform. The only conceivable way you would be able to get on the wrong train were if your train was on platform 1, on the left let’s say, and you got on to the train standing on the right at platform 2. The scanning of tickets also stops people getting on the train without a valid ticket, therefore cutting down on the need to have ticket inspectors onboard the train. The only time I came across a ticket inspector onboard the train was on our way to Ronda where some stops were request stops hence the inspector needing to know where people were getting off at.
The trains were clean and comfortable – Cleaners came onboard at every final destination and rubbish was also collected throughout the journey. On the UK trains the seats are often stained with goodness-knows-what and there’s usually chewing gum deeply embedded into the carpet with rubbish overflowing, the Spanish trains in comparison were absolutely spotless. I can’t speak from personal experience but am told that the toilets were of the same high standard of cleanliness.
We did have one ‘oops moment’ where we found ourselves sitting in the wrong carriage, but that lesson was soon learned and not repeated – Look for the coach number at the front/rear of the coach either as a small cardboard number or on a digital display – The coach number is displayed on the outside of the train too but upon boarding it can be unclear if to turn left or right for your coach! Seat numbers are easily found above each seat but these don’t have the coach number so best to check and check again before sitting down.
Maps of the route and the speed the train is traveling at (250kmph was our top speed) showed up on the tv screens which was really great, especially when we were unsure where the train was stopping / which stop was ours. Announcements were made in Spanish and English about 5-10minutes before reaching a station to allow everyone time to gather their belongings and head to the doors but sometimes it was difficult to hear/understand the place names said in English.
The only ‘problem’ we had on the entire 3-week trip was getting to/from Granada because of ongoing engineering works, I guess it should have been expected that there would be a snag somewhere along the line (pun fully intended!). We were initially peeved because The Trainline had not notified us of this, signs informing of this were all in Spanish, and no one at the information desk spoke English but it actually turned out more than ok as we were allowed to catch an earlier replacement coach service which got us into Granada when we should have only just been catching the train. Coming back from Granada was the same, we thought it was just weekend works and it would be cleared up by Tuesday but on entering Granada station we realized it was going to be another replacement coach service. We didn’t know what time the coach left or how it would affect ongoing travel but honestly, these Spaniards have it sorted and it was no problem, plenty of time to spare. I wish my experience in the UK had been the same when they closed down Reading station for a weekend!!