El viajero (The traveller)

I’ve been known to ramble a bit about the Spanish high speed rail network. The thing is, it really is that good.

My recent weekend excursions allowed me to put to the test the very high impression of the AVE network that had been instilled in my mind since the sleepy afternoon back in 2005 when Mrs Cochrane tried to excite her Period 7 class about Spanish cosmopolitanism. At the time, it seemed improbable to my world-wise teenage brain that Spain would be able to beat the French or the Germans at their own game. (I’m overlooking the fact that the British in fact invented trains.)

The reality is as good as the PR makes it sound. The stations and the trains are impeccably clean, faultlessly punctual, and the service is with a smile. There are even airport scanners awaiting you before ‘boarding’, if only to further heighten the sense of adventure.

To take an example: for centuries an arduous trek through baking hot, barren desert (the same criticism could still be levelled at the gridlocked A-6 motorway), the 90km journey to Segovia has been reduced to a 20-minute commuter hop.

Unveiled at the peak of Spain’s rampant development in the so-called ‘noughties’, the network is a poignant reminder of the good years. Gleaming high-speed stations glare out across the plains from the outskirts of many Spanish cities, whose inhabitants complain about being unable to afford tickets. (In my experience these complaints aren’t always justified – at least not over short distances, which are around 20€ per return journey).

If you talk to locals you find that transport in Spain is a polemic issue. The journey from Madrid to Barcelona (about 600km) is served by a much-publicised AVE link, but everyone you speak to prefers to trek out to the airport and take a flight. Apparently it’s cheaper. While people complain the train tickets are too expensive, the AVE operators complain that the line is underused which keeps prices artificially high. Meanwhile, the fifteen flights a day between the two cities do a roaring trade. Not exactly a “green” state of affairs, then.

Out on Madrid’s streets there are no signs of the typically Parisian kamikaze scooters who risk their own lives and those of every pedestrian within 100m in a quest to nab the perfect parking space. People instead continue to use their cars to get everywhere – even for the most impractical of short hops. Noise pollution (and actual pollution) are rife in Madrid, particularly in the centre. No signs of a ‘congestion charge zone’ on Gran Vía, which is rumoured to see 55,000 vehicles a day.

The noise pollution is something that’s struck me the most about being here – but it’s a topic for another post.

Less rambling and more scribbling to come...

High-speed rail station in the middle of the desert, just outside Segovia

Spanish of the Day

poner a alguien a caldo - to give someone a piece of your mind. (Lit. 'to put someone in the soup')

sacar de quicio - to drive somenoe round the bend. (Lit. 'to unhinge')