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The Train in Spain: Between León and Galicia With Ease
| Article
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13980 |
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Section : |
LIFE
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| Issue
Date : |
2 / 1988 |
1,409 Words |
| Author
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Robert Levine
Robert Levine is a travel writer who lives in New York. |
In the small fishing villages that dot the Atlantic and Cantabrian coasts of northwest Spain, the past often seems to be a vibrant part of the present, and life appears to be without stress. One can visit these villages by car, but it feels, somehow, out of keeping with the character of the area. Fortunately, there is a train called the Transcantabrico that offers an alternative way of experiencing the area. A throwback to easier, more graceful times, it travels just over six hundred miles between the provinces of León and Galicia every week from June through October.
The Transcantabrico, northern Spain's narrow-gauge railway train, was built in the 1920s to transport iron ore and coal through the region's otherwise untraversable mountains. It was transformed into a luxury passenger service in 1984 and now sports a sleek, dark blue and white exterior. Four of its coaches are sleeping cars consisting of eight slightly too snug compartments, each with an upper and lower berth, wash basin, medicine cabinet, and dresser. The WCs, showers, and lockable closets are in the corridors outside the rooms. Two other coaches--furnished with plush gold armchairs, dark wooden tables, and antique-looking brass lamps--are used as breakfast rooms/lounge areas. (The other two meals are taken at first-rate restaurants along the route.) American movie classics are shown in these rooms during the evenings. Evening entertainment is also provided in another coach, furnished with low red couches, by a musician on a small bandstand. We all became pretty good maracas players, singers, and dancers by the end of the trip. At night the train is stationary--the better to provide undisturbed sleep.
An anxiety reducer
The trip is an anxiety reducer as passengers journey through a picturesque countryside of lakes, small farms (from which farm hands wave as we ride by), and the Picos de Europa, which rise to a height of almost nine thousand feet. A bus follows the train to transport us to lunch, dinner, or sight-seeing trips off the train. And dining is always a delightful experience--suffice it to say that the concept of imperfectly fresh or carelessly prepared food is preposterous to the restaurateurs of northern Spain, and that variety seems to be infinite.
The forty passengers ranged in age from early thirties to late sixties. About one-fourth were English speaking, and many of the others (as well as most of the crew) tried to speak it with varying degrees of success. One foursome, young Catalans, played the Spanish-language version of
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