shredder1
Established Member
Spain, (Day 1). Saturday 12th September 2020.
Spain, (Day 1). Saturday 12th September 2020. A week exploring Spain, something I`d been meaning to do for about 20 odd years now. I had a Spanish brother in law from a previous marriage, who owned two bars on Majorca, up in Alcudia, so spend many years visiting the Island and also exploring the old railway lines, which were operated by FEVE and the Sollier Railway respectively, apart from that I`d only border hopped to places like Portbou and Irun on the old Euro Domino tickets, which was the earlier version of the Interrail Pass. I decided to fly into the centre of Spain, Madrid, and basically used the capital city as a base.
After reading Man in Seat 61 and the issues with having to book seat reservations on AVE and other long distance and Intercity trains, it was suggested that the Interrail tickets were no longer viable in Spain. However, RENFE now offer a journey ticket, were you buy so many journeys and everything is included, you still have to physically make a reservation, or you can do it on line if you can work it out, but these are free with the journey ticket which is called a Spain Rail Pass. I priced one up on the internet, before leaving the UK and for an 8-journey ticket is cost £300 and they also told me I could buy one at the station when I arrived, what they didn’t tell me was that it would cost me an extra £50. Each trip is booked, one journey per train, so if you break your journey, then you have to buy another one or you`ve simply lost that journey, so It’s not ideal for the sort of thing we do, but it does get you from one end of the country to another and quite quickly, it’s not a great system for enthusiasts, but did seem my best option.
I was travelling with my trusted Ryanair and managed a couple of £25 flights in and out of Madrid. Flying from Manchester on Saturday morning I arrived in Madrid for around 13.00 and after 3 different Metro lines to get to Central Madrid from the airport and the first thing I did was to locate the apartment, a little more expensive than my Central and Western European accommodations, at £150 for 8 nights, but it was clean, had everything I needed and more importantly a 5 minute walk from the main railway station.
My intension was to visit the National Railway museum, which wasn’t too far away from my apartment, but it closed at 15.00 on my day of arrival and was closed all week after that, so sadly that was off the cards. I dropped my rucksack off at the apartment and walked around to Madrid Puerta de Atocha Madrid’s main railway station, but they wouldn’t let me onto the high-speed platforms to take photographs unless I was travelling, and to be fair the high-speed lines are surrounded by security with airport type scanners for all bags as you pass though. I expect brought about by the terrible bombings in the early 2000.
Joined to the main railway station is the suburban station of Madrid Atocha Cercanías, but again I was unable to access the platforms without a ticket, and at this stage I didn’t really know how to get around the network, so I took a walk to the side of the station and found an area of wasteland where I could manage a few photographs of suburban training arriving and leaving the station, and this is basically how I spent my first afternoon in the city, plus I purchased my RENFE rail pass and booked a reservation in readiness for the first trip, out. So, after taking tea in a local Tapas restaurant, I retired back to my apartment to make plans for the following day and also to have an early night as I needed to be up for 05.00. I`d made a reservation on the first AVE down to Malaga and the excitement made if difficult to sleep that night, despite already having had a long day getting there.
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Spain, (Day 1). Saturday 12th September 2020. A week exploring Spain, something I`d been meaning to do for about 20 odd years now. I had a Spanish brother in law from a previous marriage, who owned two bars on Majorca, up in Alcudia, so spend many years visiting the Island and also exploring the old railway lines, which were operated by FEVE and the Sollier Railway respectively, apart from that I`d only border hopped to places like Portbou and Irun on the old Euro Domino tickets, which was the earlier version of the Interrail Pass. I decided to fly into the centre of Spain, Madrid, and basically used the capital city as a base.
After reading Man in Seat 61 and the issues with having to book seat reservations on AVE and other long distance and Intercity trains, it was suggested that the Interrail tickets were no longer viable in Spain. However, RENFE now offer a journey ticket, were you buy so many journeys and everything is included, you still have to physically make a reservation, or you can do it on line if you can work it out, but these are free with the journey ticket which is called a Spain Rail Pass. I priced one up on the internet, before leaving the UK and for an 8-journey ticket is cost £300 and they also told me I could buy one at the station when I arrived, what they didn’t tell me was that it would cost me an extra £50. Each trip is booked, one journey per train, so if you break your journey, then you have to buy another one or you`ve simply lost that journey, so It’s not ideal for the sort of thing we do, but it does get you from one end of the country to another and quite quickly, it’s not a great system for enthusiasts, but did seem my best option.
I was travelling with my trusted Ryanair and managed a couple of £25 flights in and out of Madrid. Flying from Manchester on Saturday morning I arrived in Madrid for around 13.00 and after 3 different Metro lines to get to Central Madrid from the airport and the first thing I did was to locate the apartment, a little more expensive than my Central and Western European accommodations, at £150 for 8 nights, but it was clean, had everything I needed and more importantly a 5 minute walk from the main railway station.
My intension was to visit the National Railway museum, which wasn’t too far away from my apartment, but it closed at 15.00 on my day of arrival and was closed all week after that, so sadly that was off the cards. I dropped my rucksack off at the apartment and walked around to Madrid Puerta de Atocha Madrid’s main railway station, but they wouldn’t let me onto the high-speed platforms to take photographs unless I was travelling, and to be fair the high-speed lines are surrounded by security with airport type scanners for all bags as you pass though. I expect brought about by the terrible bombings in the early 2000.
Joined to the main railway station is the suburban station of Madrid Atocha Cercanías, but again I was unable to access the platforms without a ticket, and at this stage I didn’t really know how to get around the network, so I took a walk to the side of the station and found an area of wasteland where I could manage a few photographs of suburban training arriving and leaving the station, and this is basically how I spent my first afternoon in the city, plus I purchased my RENFE rail pass and booked a reservation in readiness for the first trip, out. So, after taking tea in a local Tapas restaurant, I retired back to my apartment to make plans for the following day and also to have an early night as I needed to be up for 05.00. I`d made a reservation on the first AVE down to Malaga and the excitement made if difficult to sleep that night, despite already having had a long day getting there.
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