Day Trains -- San Sebastian to Seville

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Up Early

Our day began early because the train we had reservations on was scheduled to arrive in San Sebastian at 08:30 and leave at 08:32. Our experience in Europe has been that if the schedule says a train is to leave at 08:32 there is about a 99.9 percent chance that trail will begin moving at 08:32. To be a minute late is to be left standing on the platform. We really did not want that to happen as it would certainly mess up the entire day.

Breakfast -- Yes this is breakfast

We had breakfast in the restaurant that is part of the hotel. My impression was they are separate businesses located in the same building. Breakfast was about 5 Euros each, something over $6.00. And what do you get for a breakfast? I am glad you asked. We got:


• Coffee or tea
• A glass of orange juice
• A pastry -- of which there was a selection of five or six types.




That's it folks. No, we were not surprised but we were not overfed either. The coffee was good and strong, like it should be to give us a jolt of caffeine to wake up. I had a double espresso and Nancy had her Earl Gray tea.

To the station

We would have liked to walked back to the older part of town to visit the cathedral, but time did not permit this adventure. Once breakfast was over we checked out of the hotel, walked out the restaurant door on the train platform and then walked the 30 feet to the terminal door. A security guard stood in the doorway blocking our way. He asked me a question. I supposed I had a blank stare on my face for a woman turned and asked , "Are you going to Madrid?"

Security Check?

I replied that yes, we were going to Madrid where we would make a change so we could travel on to Seville. She then explained that we had to enter through the main door of the station off the street and pass through a security check. A security check at a train station? This was new to us.

To get to the street we had to return to the restaurant and hotel, walk through both, exit the front door of the hotel and walk the ten yards to the train station entrance. At the security check our carry-on bags were sent through an x-ray machine, our tickets were checked and we were then waved through to the platform to wait for the train.

Sunny Day

The sun was shining and how nice it was to see the world in sunshine. For the past month in Prague we had seen practically no sunshine and only a few minutes of sun during our stay in Paris. There is no question about the fact that the world seems much nicer in sunlight.

To Madrid

I was surprised how mountainous it was from San Sebastian to Madrid. San Sebastian is the first town in the Basque region of Spain and the entire area we traveled though is full of mountains. The line from the song in My Fair Lady, The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain kept running through my mind and reminded me of the the play on words The planes in Spain fall mainly in the rain . Except we were not on a plain, at least not for several hours. Just before the train entered one of Spain's plains we passed a small village squeezed into a very narrow valley. There was only room enough for the rail line, a small river and the village that appeared to have one road with a line of houses on either side. I thought as we passed, this village must have first been established as a military outpost. What an easy place to defend against an invading army. The narrowness of the gap reminded me of Thoroughfare Gap in Virginia where a nasty skirmish occured during the Civil War in the US just prior to the Second Battle of Bull Run in 1862. Very shortly after passing this gap the train entered a plain leading to Madrid.

Transfer in Madrid

Trains from the north stop at the Chamartin Train Station. For the traveler going to Seville, Barcelona and other points either west or south a transfer to the Atocha Train Station is necessary. I had read there were shuttle trains between the two stations, but I was not sure what we needed to do at the Chamartin station to catch the shuttle. Also, I was not sure if it was a free shuttle or if there would be a charge. What to do? When in doubt, ask ... right?

Upon entering the big waiting room of the station, there are smaller ones in other locations, we looked for an information booth. Spoting one we walked to it. A young woman was working the information desk. We ask her what we needed to do to make the transfer. She took our tickets and said, "See this code?"

"Yes," we replied. There was a five letter/number code on the upper right side of out tickets, a different code on each.

"Go to those machines in the center of the room," she said, "press the button for English. Then the one labeled 'transfer,'. You will be asked if you are paying cash or transferring with a ticket. Select transferring and enter the code. You will be given a ticket for the transfer."

"Neat," I thought.

We followed her directions, got out tickets and followed the signs to the platform where the shuttle would pick us up. The shuttle runs every ten or fifteen minutes, so our wait was not long. We were talking as we boarded the train. A woman overhead us and indicated that, yes indeed, this was the shuttle we wanted. There are a number of stops between the two stations. They are well marked, so it was not a problem when the shuttle pulled into a stop whether this was the one we wanted or not.

At Atocha

We had a two to three hour wait at Atocha. At least we were not rushed having plenty of time to find the waiting room and grabbing a bite to eat. There were several eateries that lined the waiting room. Nancy had a full meal with a quarter of a chicken and I had a pasta dish. The restaurant was really full service though it had a cafeteria style line. The food was well prepared and delicious and not outrageously priced. Good deal all around! The wait seemed to go quickly and soon we were climbing aboard the train to Seville.

Madrid to Seville

We traveled over plain and rolling hills on the way to Seville. It is a beautiful ride. In fact both legs of this journey were beautful to our eyes.

Olives

Both of us were simply amazed at the trememdous amount of land devoted to growing olives in Spain. I have seen olive groves in Italy. In Spain I cannot call them groves. Rather I have to call them Olive Landscapes or Olive Forests. There were numerous places where literally for miles there were olive trees as far as the eye could see on both sides of the train. Through flat and especially through rolling hills there were olive trees. It seemed that the entire earth would be awash in olive oil but that seems not to be the case.

Seville

We arrived in Seville at dusk. It was not completely dark, but the light was fading fast. We had a reservation waiting for us at a hotel about two miles from the train station. Thank goodness for maps we can download to our IPod. With the aid of the map we were at the hotel in about forty minutes. Finding the hotel without the map would have been difficult if not impossible otherwise. We could have taken a taxi, but that does not fit out outlook on life ... so ...

It had been a long day, but a good day.

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