AVE

The AVE leaves at 1330 so I have time to explore a couple of the plazas. South of Huertas where I am staying is Lavapies. (Lavapies translates to footwashers; one charming piece of trivia about Madrid is that there are many decorated tile street signs. I don't know what footwashers did historically; tell me if you do. But they are also not consistent; I saw a Calle del Leon (Street of the Lion) sign, alas behind scaffolding so no picture, and at the other end of the street Calle de Leon (the city, I assume)) There are a lot of Chinese-run import firms. It's not just the factories of China that are contributing to its success, but also a untrumpeted army of Chinese who set up import firms and variety stores in other countries. Someone once commented that you could judge the viability of an economy by the number of Chinese conducting business there. If so, then Madrid seems to be in good shape. At the Mercado de San Miguel I stop again to have a jamon bocadillo and a slice of truffle cake.

Security for the AVE for Atocha includes X-raying of luggage. I don't know whether this was already in place during the bombings. (It wouldn't have helped, the targets were suburban trains, but I suppose the AVE is a high-profile target.)

The acronym (expanding to Alta Velocidad Española) and logo are suggestive of speed. It takes 3.5 hours to Barcelona Sants but it made stops in Guadalajara, Zaragoza, Lleida and Tarragona. I think the non-stop service takes 2.5 hours and of course, costs more. It reached a top speed of just under 300 km/h by the display but this wasn't sustained. I wouldn't not have guessed we were travelling that fast. There are no means of comparison except the occassional car on a parallel road.

I'm too tired to see a bit of Barcelona so this time I'll just shoot through. There are frequent trains to França, where the overnight departs, so I have dinner at a Sants cafeteria and go to França around 2000.


The Elipsos coach designers could have been taking lessons from Japanese capsule hotel designers. Everything feels cramped, for example, the doorways of compartments are barely the width of one person. On the other hand, the coach is fairly new, all the appliances work and the airconditioning is perfect, so I am being picky. The curvy surfaces even look a bit art deco-ish.


I have a fascination with night trains going back to childhood journeys between Kuala Lumpur and Penang or Singapore. In those days, it took a whole night to travel 400 km. From the tiny ventilation window of my berth, snug under the sheet, I would watch as the train rumbled past rubber plantations and small villages with only one lamp burning. At night everything is full of mystery and wonder—a chthonic world dissipated and turned ordinary by daybreak. That feeling of mystery in night travel, fictituous as it may be, has never left me.


This trip, I watched for a while as Catalonian highways, shopping centres, and factories slipped past our window until the concierge came to lower the bunks. Except for a few minutes of interruption when a fellow passenger got out at Limoges, I slept deeply until the train deposited us at the Gare de Austerlitz.