Day 567 - On Our Way to Vigo, Spain and (We Hope) Madrid
CP Train Drama in Porto
We make it out of our B&B and onboard our Portuguese CP Rail train passing through acres of vineyards, villages, and white-washed homes piled on hillsides crammed with pine and swaying birch. Through each small town the loud blare of the train’s horn split the morning air and corrals of goats and horses would raise their heads in alarm and then return to the stolid joys of munching their cud.
We have been through precisely this same territory before. Ten months earlier we rode the same train from Porto to Vigo. Exploring bits of Portugal and Spain after returning from Morocco in June of 2022 was part of our plan when we decided to blithely walk the famous Camino Way from that town to St. Jame’s gravesite with its lovely cathedral to Santiago de Compostela — 60 miles, in 100º temperatures. It was brutal. (That story is yet to come but you can see pictures on Polasrsteps Days 268 to 281.) Now as the train grinds through the countryside, I can see pilgrims processing the longer path from Lisbon to Santiago through Vigo, backpacks hitched and walking sticks in hand.
11:30 AM. As we cross the border into Spain it's suddenly 11:15 AM not 10:15, and we watch the grinding CP train soon slide past Vigo's great bay and into the station. A mad scramble to extricate our bags and make tracks to the ticket office where we are met with a long line. Now we're in trouble. One ticketmistress behind the plexiglass and we have 45 minutes to get our tickets. But we might have to move to another station in Vigo which I know will take at least 20 more minutes. It'll be tight. We should be fine. But if we don't make Madrid today, all of the plans we have made all the way through Switzerland will unravel.
Ten minutes pass and the line remains unmoved. Deep breath. One of the things you have to learn when traveling through so many countries is patience, but the sloth of the progress is putting me in a dark mood. We were up at 6 AM to make the train to Vigo. We haven't eaten and I'm frustrated with CP. More waiting. I look at the clock. Now we haven't moved for 15 minutes and people in line are shuffling around, getting antsy.
The woman gumming up the works is a gray haired lady, American, maybe Canadian or German, standing at the head of the line asking incessant questions of the RENFE agent. She seems nice enough but I’m ready to pitch her out of the station door. While not another soul is moving forward she is smiling and joking and asking and eating up everyone's time. Meanwhile, the Spanish Railway (RENFE) agent seems oblivious to the ten of us waiting for relief. I whisper to Cyn, “It’s all part of a grand conspiracy to destroy our plans.”
After 20 interminable minutes, the long-winded woman is done at last, beaming because she has solved her problem even if no one else has moved an inch. If we have to change stations, I am now certain we won’t make it. Cyndy asks a security guard how we can best get to Madrid. We exchange a lot of Google Translate conversations and he finally assures us we won't have to leave the station. But will we still make it? The line creeps forward. By the time we reach the agent, she holds up a sign that says we must immediately board our 12:30 train.
“Really?” I want to say. “Imagine that!” But I say nothing. I just show her the Eurail Planner on my phone and explain we need tickets to the train she just said we must board... now. She looks alarmed, as if we are wrongly rushing her. We exchange passports, her hands flutter over the keyboard. She’s very flustered. After a few minutes, she manages to fumble out tickets, but not to Madrid, just the next stop: Pontevedra, one hour away. In Pontevedra we will have 30 minutes to get off the train, get yet another ticket and, at last, pick up the final leg to Madrid. (Or will it?) Wasn't the Camino Way last year easier than this? I explain we wanted tickets to Madrid not Pontevedra, but she says she didn't have time and thrusts the tickets in our hands!
We make the train by a whisker. I try to remind myself that one of the many lessons this seven continent journey is teaching me is: patience, patience, patience. But it's a struggle.
Madrid - At Last
At Pontevedra, we arrange another ticket – the one that would finally take us into the heart of Spain. Before we board, I snatch two empanadas because we won't arrive for another 4 1/2 hours. Cyn and I devour them and try to enjoy the rolling hills of Galicia Spain. (Called Galicia, because the Irish settled in this part of the world after the fall of Rome). The swaying birches, sweeping vineyards, tiny villages and serene, rivers, help unknit my angry brow as the train speeds east and into the heart of Spain.
Spain has made good use of its entry into the European Union. The roads and bridges are excellent. The trains are clean, maintained, and on time with pristine stations, even if its website is abominable. (You can't have everything.)
The farther north, we traveled the better and more efficiently, the world seems to run. It's all about money and how well countries manage their money and that is all about politics, culture, and resources. Given the complexity of these forces, I'm sometimes astounded that anything works.
5:19 p.m. Madrid has two train stations. Charmatin is on one end of the city, Atoche is on the other. We still have to take another local train to Atoche because the next morning we depart for Perpignan, France from there.
New construction surrounds the platform as we step off the train. We crowd onto the escalator that will take us into the main station. Utter mayhem. I have never seen so many people inside of one building. It’s the herd waiting to learn where their train will be boarding. It makes New York's Penn station look empty by comparison. We fight through the crowd to find the local train to Atoche. But where is it? At last we find the correct track, jump onboard and arrived four stops later where we wearily haul ourselves through Charmartin's even larger and equally crammed train station to our hotel.
Once in the Melodia Hotel across from the Atoche train station I gazed out the window and watched the sunset. Could Europe's trains get any busier? And this was the off-season. What hysteria would summer bring? We took a shower and prepared for our morning trip to Lyon.
