Ken and Elise's trip

Day 29: The Sleeper Train

I have now for the first time in my life (and probably the only time) taken a shower on a train. I have also slept in a bed on the train.

When planning the trip I had discovered that the only reasonable train from Spain to Portugal is the overnight train from Madrid to Lisbon. It was a bit pricey to get a sleeper cabin for two--it actually would have been cheaper to fly. But this is a trip of experiences--and Ken and I decided to add to our experiences and take a sleeper train.

First we had to get reservations for the train that would take us from Barcelona to Madrid where we would catch the sleeper. I had reservations for every single major train trip the entire way except this one.. I don’t know if it was my mistake or Rail Europe’s, but the fact was that we had no reservations. I wasn’t sure if we needed them, but the trains fill up and it is often a good thing to have reserved seats. So we went to the Barcelona station to get the seats. And herein came another new experience. We went to the help window, stood in a short line and got a very nice girl who spoke fairly good English. She told us what train to take--the 5:15 to Madrid which was a direct line. We were a bit concerned in that we would have to switch from the station the train came in at to the Chamartin station where the sleeper left from but she assured us that we had two hours to do it in and the trains to Chamartin ran every 15 minutes (as it turned out they ran every 5). We pulled out our euros and she shook her head and told us we would have to buy the tickets at “windows 8-18”. Seemed dumb to us to have to go to another window to purchase, but what the heck!

We headed off and easily found the correct windows and to my relief there was no lines at any of these windows. GREAT!! This was going to be easy. But no--of course it wasn’t. My ever suspicious husband said, “You know, Elise I think we’re supposed to get a number and wait for it to be called. All these people sitting here aren’t sitting here just for the fun of it.”

I had noticed about 70 people sitting in seats in front of the windows, but assumed they were just waiting for trains. But of course Ken was right. We had to take a number. He found the ticket machine and we got something like number 207. We sat down and waited. And waited some more. I’d guess it was more than an hour later when our number was called. We finally got to the window and got our seat reservations. The cost for the reservations stunned me--approximately 50 euros! Seemed a LOT of money to reserve two seats. But we paid it and finally were able to head out. This had happened the day before.

So now we were in our last day in Barcelona. And Parc Guell loomed its ugly head over us again that morning. We got up, cleaned Silvina’s apartment and left for the train station about noon. We arrived in Barcelona about 12:30 with hours to wait. It was time for Parc Guell.

Finally we admitted it.. We didn’t want to go. As we told each other, we had been able to get some photos of the wild interior from the outside premises. We had a good idea of what was inside. We just didn’t want to walk that far. So we didn’t. Blake was disappointed when we told him later as he thought it was a place we should have not missed, but he understood.

We wandered around Barcelona a bit and then when my foot really started hurting we went back to the train station to wait. Ken discovered something that was to prove valuable.. We had considered ourselves real veterans now on catching trains. You just showed up, read the board, found your train and the track and headed there. But Ken wandered around a bit and said to me “You know I think we have to go through security to get on trains here.”

Even earlier we had discovered that Barcelona takes security seriously. We had left our luggage and found our luggage had to be scanned and so did we before we could enter the luggage room.

Ken was right. No walking just to the track here. It was at this station that Basque separatists had pulled off a terror attack and security is taken very seriously now. In fact here it was very much like an airport. People line up and have to go through a regular security line. Then you wait in a special lounge for your train to arrive. We were surprised to see people start lining up for the train about 15 minutes before departure. Seemed odd to us. Why do that especially with reservations? No one could take your seat. But ever the cautious ones, we lined up too. I think really I was right--we didn’t have to. I saw several businessmen who were clearly regular travelers who never left their seats to get in line. I think they just waited for the line to finish, then they waltzed onboard and found their seats. But really, I was sort of glad we had got in line. We were near the front and didn’t have to fight to get our luggage in the overhead compartments and we were among the first in our cabin to be seated.

And then the train started and were we in for a wonderful surprise. This Spanish train was completely different than any we had taken before. We had traveled first class all the way and it was pleasant, but nothing like what we experienced here. We were treated like first class airline passengers. The stewards came down the aisle constantly. We could choose ANY beverage we wanted including Dewars, wine or most any other kind of alcohol--all as part of that reservation fee I had been so shocked at the price of. They even had a zero alcohol beer that Ken tried and liked a lot, They came by with hot towels to wipe our dainty fingers with. A meal was served. Magazines and newspapers were handed out. I’m telling you, it was luxurious.

Eventually we arrived in Madrid. Figuring out how to get to Chamartin was a bit stressful but we did it and arrived there with an hour to spare. And then finally, it was time to board our sleeper train.

A very nice steward stood outside and directed us to our cabin and berth. We entered to find our beds all made up and about a foot of spare room to move around in. We checked out our private bathroom. Decent sized shower, sink and leather cases filled with samples of soap, toothbrushes, tissues, slippers, and a host of other things.

Ken figured out how to put the beds up and turn the compartment into a regular compartment with seats which gave us more room to move about. Later he figured out that we could put the suitcases in an overhead compartment, but we didn’t see that right away and it felt good to store the suitcases at the ends of where the beds had been before Ken changed it to a seat compartment. We actually felt we had some room to relax.

Well, soon I decided to go to bed. It was 11 and we had to be up by 6:30 as the train would roll into Lisbon at 7:55 (we didn’t realize until we got up and got dressed that the time changed and we actually had a spare hour).. I fold Ken I was going to take a shower and then I wanted to go to bed so could he please get the beds back down (we had bunk beds--Ken slept on top).

I tried out the shower--cramped but not as bad as you might think. Got my jammies on and opened the door to the regular compartment to find my husband with a distracted look on his face. “You can’t just put the beds back down,” he said. “You have to have a hex wrench.” He hunted all over for one and just couldn’t find it.. Finally he was forced to go down the hall and find the steward who came back with a non-too happy look on his face. Apparently you are not supposed to put the beds back up. The steward was the only one with the needed wrench and with a look of long suffering patience, he once again brought the beds back down into place.

With red faces we thanked him and I crawled into bed. Ken decided to take his shower too and soon he was in bed as well.

I sleep very well on trains (at least I’ve slept well in the seats as we’ve traveled along) so I expected to sleep well in the sleeper car. All in all I did pretty well although I did wake up a number of times.

Soon our alarms went off and we found ourselves trying to get dressed in the dinky space allotted. Ken--brave man that he is--put the beds back up! Eventually we were dressed and ready for departure.

Just as we were figuring the train should be coming in there was a knock at the door. I opened it to find our patient steward outside. “One hour” he said. ‘You have one hour before we arrive.” That’s when we realized the time had changed in the night and we were an hour ahead of Lisbon time. The steward was giving us a “wake up call”. He looked around me, saw the beds back up, got a sour look on his face but said nothing and disappeared down the hall to wake up the next cabin.

An hour later, we arrived at St. Apolonia station in Lisbon.

End of Day 29