Tres Cantos–our arrival

On Thursday it will be four weeks since we made our dream of moving to Spain a reality! I’m happy to report that we arrived safely, and have officially become empadronados, which means domiciled, in our new hometown of Tres Cantos.

When we first arrived at 9:00 a.m. to the Madrid Barajas airport, bleary-eyed with exhaustion and the time change, we had no trouble claiming our bags and catching a taxi. “We’re going to Tres Cantos,” I told the taxi driver in Spanish. I had dreamed of saying this for 22 long months, and at times had despaired that our dream would ever come to fruition.

“Vale, está bien,” (“OK, good”) said the driver, and off we went.

Tres Cantos is a suburb of Madrid, about 25 minutes in taxi from the airport. That was one of the criteria I had used to choose Tres Cantos as our landing point, since we wanted to have a reasonable commute to the airport.

Neither my husband nor I had ever been to Tres Cantos, so our most burning question was whether we would like it there. If it didn’t feel right, for whatever reason, I had a Plan B and a Plan C for other suburbs to look at.

The taxi driver took the highway north, passing swaths of golden sunbaked fields and scrubby oak and pine trees before exiting toward Tres Cantos. We held our breath as the city revealed itself: five and six story-high red-bricked apartment buildings, wide, tree-lined avenues, fountains, rust-colored statues, people of all ages strolling under flowering lilac bushes draped in arches over walk-ways, colorful sidewalks under a perfect blue sky… “It’s beautiful,” I whispered, feeling teary-eyed.  

I had booked the hotel in advance, but for just one week—long enough to not have to worry about it right away, but short enough to change to another hotel if this one, or Tres Cantos in general, was not to our liking. Fortunately, the reviews were accurate and the hotel, VP Jardin Tres Cantos, was a nice place. The staff were super-friendly, the restaurant served good food, there were other restaurants and shops in walking distance, a bus stop right in front, and a large metropolitan park right across the street.

That first day we didn’t get much done as sleep overcame us. The hotel had allowed us to take our rooms as soon as we got there, so we lay down and then only got up close to 3pm, by which time it was time to get some lunch, or as the Spanish call their mid-afternoon main meal, comida.

Over the next few days, we scheduled times to see homes, and within a week we found a place we loved. The landlady was still having some painting done to it, so it took another week to be ready for us, and then almost 2 weeks ago, we moved in.

I had planned to get an apartment, but the ones we saw (and granted, July is not the best time of the year to try to rent an apartment in Spain) were either too small or were located too far away from the city life. And as we are planning not to buy a car, this was a deal-breaker. So, we ended up with a cute townhouse located just a hop, skip and a jump from a bustling street.

More on that in my next blog post. Meanwhile, here’s a picture of those funky sidewalks around the Central Park.

What do you think so far? Is there anything about Tres Cantos you’d like me to discuss in a future blog post? Let me know!

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