The train in Spain...
Lots of people have asked about our trip by train to Granada just before Easter so here's a bit more info and some pictures (once I've worked out how to load them!). We decided to go by train 'cos we hate airports - one of us gets rather stressed that people just don't know how to queue! (How we'll cope with a scrum of 500+ Russians and Indians checking in for an Aeroflot flight I'm not sure...) We do seem, for once, to have tapped into a zeitgeisty-thing as train travel seems to be really big this year - although our little trip wasn't that big. Six nights in the hotel plus two nights at each end on the train.

It's really all the fault of the chap at www.seat61.com as he makes train travel to all destinations look easy and interesting, with a whiff of the Agatha Christies about it. Following his sage advice made booking all these journies online a doddle. So, we went from Chippenham to Paddington, then to Waterloo to catch the Eurostar to Paris. We then crossed Paris to Gare d'Austerlitz and dumped our bags in the left luggage office whilst we went for a short walk. Left luggage offices are brilliant. We spent a fortune in them over the week as they allow you to troll around a new city for up to 72 hours baggage free - coughing up £9.00 and only using it for 2 hours seems a bit steep but the freedom it gave us was wonderful. We managed to stroll as far as Notre Dame and had a coffee in a lovely cafe overlooking Ile de la Cite. It was my first visit to Paris and a Parisian cafe and I was most disappointed - all the staff at the cafe were smiling and pleasant, they said 'thank you' as we left and pointed the way to the loo most helpfully! It was probably too early in the season for them to have practised being surly and aloof.

So, back to Gare d'Austerlitz for the TrenHotel to Madrid. The 2 person 1st class berth has seats that get stowed away when the porter puts the bunk beds down, plus a sink, free bottled drinking water and towels. We also got a free breakfast. If you go Grand Classe you get a shower, free dinner and breakfast. Passports are taken by your porter so that they don't have to wake you in the middle of the night as you cross the border. Strangely, none of the (all male) staff on the train that weekend spoke French - which seemed a bit odd as the train goes daily between Spain and France - so our emergency holiday Spanish was really tested to the limit! Still, we managed to reserve a table in the restaurant car, got a great meal and lots of sherry, so we were happy! Sleep was a bit hit and miss, like trying to sleep in the cabins on the car ferry, and the sink unit didn't prove to be the easiest thing to use (we didn't use the ensuite loo pictured above). But the communal loos were cleaned by the porters several times during the journey, so that was nice. The views of Spain over breakfast were fantastic including snow-capped mountains and the royal palace of El Escorial.

The only bit of the journey I hadn't pre-booked was that from Madrid to Granada as it seemed like there were only 2 direct trains per day and we'd miss the early one and the late one only got in at 11pm. The Spanish information desks didn't seem to understand the concept of 'changing trains' so the direct train was the only option we were given. Luckily, thanks again to Seat 61, I'd printed out the changing options from a fabby German website Bahn.de which seems to have every rail journey in Europe on it, so I knew we had options - the problem was trying to convince the Spanish of that! I think next time I'll buy the Thomas Cook European World Timetable to take along too. We decided to go to Seville and change for Granada so we went to buy the tickets...The ticket offices at major Spanish stations look like a circle of Hell - hundreds of people standing around with no apprant system for being served - even though there's a 'wait your turn' ticket machine like at the deli counter in Morrisons. But there is a system: watch the numbers above the desks until yours is close to being called, then fight your way to the front as fast as poss 'cos if you're not there when your number comes up they'll flip it over, you'll have missed your slot and have to start all over again. The chap at the desk thought we were mad to want to go to Seville AND Granada in the same day and it cost us a fortune but at least we were on our way!

The trains in Spain are fantastic with even the oldest and shabbiest that we got on the way back to Madrid having air con, feature films on video and free headphones to listen to them. The train to Seville was bliss - it had all of the above and free sweets too! And then we walked into the buffet car...the atmosphere was like the best Spanish bar you've ever been in with a buzz of friendly chatter and excellent food and drink. It even had a Penguin drinking beer...honest...but we forgot to take a picture of it. The journey took about 6 hours in all - we thought we'd be bored so we got out our MP3 players and books, but we actually spent most of the time staring out of the window at the scenery (and going to the bar of course!).

The hotel that Jon picked, Puerta de Las Granadas, was brilliant. It was central, on the hill leading up to the Alhambra, with one of the best bars in town, the Gran Taberna, on the corner. We'd taken the DK guide but actually found it a bit inaccurate and not as reliable as they usually are, so this '48 Hours in Granada' pull-out from the Indie proved indespensible. We'd gone to Granada to eat and drink and we loved the sherry, fino, malaga and various beers we had whilst we were there. The tapas were fantastic and worth a visit on their own, but we were a bit disappointed by the 'proper' meals, perhaps because the tapas promised so much. I think that ordering the 'raciones' or plates of mixed tapas for a meal is a much better idea. The Bodegas Castañeda was also a fantastically atmospheric old bar but the site of our worst culinary disaster when we ended up with pigs trotters...twice...during the same meal...Jon actually found some meat on his but mine was all fat and bone - I don't think that even nostalgia for a peasant past is an excuse for serving this in the 21st century!

We loved Granada. It felt very like Bath: a small friendly city, with lots of historical interest, that you could walk around easily; and, like Bath, had its fair share of crusties! Actually the begging (gypsies with heather and people trying to forcibly clean your shoes) was one of the worst things about the holiday and definitely gave us chance to try out the 'brush off' tactics we'll need in India. I'm glad we'd gone the week before the holiday season officially started because I imagine it would be much worse in summer. Our day at the Alhambra was wonderful and again we booked the tickets online before we went - essential to pre-book as only 30% of tickets are kept to be sold on the day. We followed the advice on a Trip Advisor forum regarding visiting times and it worked perfectly - but do start looking for the ticket office long before your entry time (at least half an hour) as it's a bit difficult to find! We had lunch at the Parador in the Alhambra, something that everyone had recommended as the gardens are lovely and the hotel overlooks the Generalife and other parts of the Alhambra gardens. We ate and drank our fino on the terrace overlooking the Alhambra - if you go, don't be put off by the prices on the menu you see at the main door, go down the stairs to the terrace and you'll find a cheaper lunch/sandwiches menu there. Jon got crapped on by a sparrow, but that's supposed to be good luck isn't it? The Alhambra itself was fantastic and we were there from 10.30 am to 7.30 pm. I was amazed to see the snow-capped Sierra Nevada mountains (only 45 mins from Granada) in the background when it was so hot in Granada itself.

We also 'did' the cathedral, royal chapel (has a fantastic collection of Flemish paintings - Jon had almost read his novel by the time I came out!) and lots of ambling around. The weather was perfect - just right for mooching and sitting outside bars, or on the hotel terrace with a bottle of Cruz Campo!

After 6 nights we got the direct train back to Madrid, which gave us about 4 hours pottering time in the capital. We weren't terribly impressed as it was Sunday and everything seemed closed - we didn't seem to find the centre and the art galleries were much too busy to attempt to go in. The bars were pricey too. We were quite glad to go back to the station for the TrenHotel. We hadn't been able to book a 2 person cabin so we were in single-sex 4 berths sharing - the bit we'd been most nervous about. But everyone seemed to have a smattering of English and we seemed like 'old hands' because we'd done the journey a week earlier and no-one else seemed to have used the sleeper before. It was now the weekend before Easter and the train was packed - seemingly with most of North America's school children - which meant that the communal loos got a bit more of a pounding than on the journey down! The gum-chewing trendy loud teenage girls blocking the corridors frightened Jon so much he wouldn't leave the bar...well, that was his excuse for getting me to run back and forth to the cabins! We couldn't get a seat in the dining car so ate in the bar (again packed with half the USA) - same menu as in the restaurant - very nice harassed Spanish girl serving spoke French and English. Although we got back to the rooms at 10.30 all our room-mates were in bed - we felt very degenerate! (Especially when I fell off the ladder whilst trying to get to the top bunk).

We'd left more time to wander round Paris on the way home (apologies to our friends in Paris for not suggesting we meet for lunch but we didn't realise how much time we had free). We now have a favourite restaurant in Paris (ignore the fact that it's the only restaurant we know in Paris) - again the staff were really sweet, but luckily one chap was almost snooty so at last we felt like we'd had a proper Parisian waiter! We walked under the Eiffel Tower, obviously not as good as Blackpool Tower because it doesn't have a circus underneath, and past lots of riot police as it was during the student demos.

We had a great time and it was lovely to get some sunshine and daylight. We've now realised that there are sleepers from Paris to most of Europe so I think Northern Italy beckons for next year - although I'm trying to persuade Jon that he really wants to go on the train and freighter to Reykjavik. But our train travel for the year isn't finished - we go on the Shatabdi Express from Delhi to Amritsar in October.
Bev