Today is a travel day — no monuments, just the road home. Two separate itineraries (BA for Marco & Havana, TAP for Jose & Rachel), both ending in Miami.
MAD → JFK · BA1567 · 10:25 → 12:25 (8h) · then JFK → MIA · BA4694 · 14:58 → 18:22 (3h 24m). Connection at JFK: 2h 33m.
Early flight — plan the transfer to Barajas with margin. Heads-up: no checked bags on the ticket, so carry-on discipline at the gate. Keep passports handy for the JFK connection (you'll clear US immigration there, not Miami).
MAD → LIS · TP1015 · 16:20 → 16:45 (1h 25m, Lisbon Terminal 1) · then LIS → MIA · TP221 · 18:55 → 23:15 (9h 20m). Connection at Lisbon: 2h 10m.
A later, gentler departure — time for an unhurried breakfast and one last café con leche. Separate transfer service is confirmed, so no need to coordinate with Marco & Havana's earlier run.
Nine days, one wide arc: Lisbon and the custard tarts of Belém → the whitewashed Algarve and Tavira → Seville's Giralda and the Maestranza → the red-and-white arches of Córdoba's Mezquita → the Nasrid palaces of the Alhambra in Granada → Madrid, a Bad Bunny stadium night, and a 300-year-old roast pig. From Vasco da Gama's spice route to Benito's love letter to Puerto Rico — not bad for one week.
Madrid-Barajas trivia for the kid: Terminal 4, where you'll likely fly, was designed by Richard Rogers (the Pompidou Centre architect) and won the 2006 Stirling Prize — those wavy bamboo ceilings and rainbow columns are why the airport looks like that. Safe travels home — descansad bien on the plane. 💙
After a four-day Madrid visit (the first papal trip to Spain since 2011), Pope Leo XIV departs for Barcelona today, where he presides over a huge open Mass at the Sagrada Família this evening. Madrid's traffic diversions and free-bus / telework measures wind down today as the capital gets back to normal.
Lovely full-circle note: the basilica's first stone was laid in 1882 under Pope Leo XIII — and 144 years later his namesake, Leo XIV, is the one to bless it. Tomorrow (June 10) he consecrates the central Tower of Jesus Christ, which at 172.5 m makes the Sagrada Família the tallest church in the world. June 10 is also exactly 100 years since Gaudí's death.
Liga Portugal approved a new distribution formula for league broadcast rights (taking effect in 2028/29) — hailed in the Portuguese press as "a historic date for Portuguese football." Quiet otherwise: the country is still glowing from being elected to a non-permanent UN Security Council seat this week.
Finish what Gaudí started. Chief architect Jordi Faulí and the Junta Constructora argue the grand stairway and forecourt are part of the original design — a temple meant to be approached, not wedged against the curb. After a century and a half, completing the master's full vision, they say, is worth the hard conversations about the land in front of it.
Don't bulldoze a neighborhood for a staircase. Salvador Barroso, lawyer for the "Afectados por el Templo" residents' platform, says 10,000 people have lived under a 40-year "sword of Damocles," and points to a 1975 Culture Ministry document arguing the staircase and plaza weren't actually signed by Gaudí. They want a real three-way negotiation and apartment-for-apartment swaps — not eviction.