ABOARD THE ARVE
Puerta del Sol is almost empty at 8:30am, yet it's go to work time and , like me, those passing through are heading for the Metro.
At 10:30 am, aboard a greyhound-sleek ARVE, leaving Madrid’s Atocha station we are Barcelona bound. Flowing out of the station, as smoothly as liquid silk, quitting the inner suburbs and surging to 300 KPH, the train soon hit its straps.
Then we are climbing, ears are popping and the high-plateau fields are under snow. Castellated church towers stand out starkly against the winter sky. Racing across a frozen landscape, we zoom past wind farms whose mills, not even Don Quixote could have stopped.
Precipitous in descent, we zip past sandstone cliff-lines down onto wide ochre plains. High atop terracotta mesas, ruined castles still keep watch, fearing old enemies might return-the legacy of a violent past and wars that drove the Moors from Spain.
Delicate concrete viaducts sweep across broad valleys, leading to tantalisingly distant villages that spill down the slopes of Olive tree-lined valleys. How good it would be to meander through them, outback-style, in a ute with swag, and mountain bike aboard and plenty of time to stay and dream. Perhaps in another time? More cliff-top churches and castles lord it above a place whose name is just a blur, as we streak through the station at warp speed. What can it be like out there in the full heat of summer? But then that would prove no deterrent to a real Australia-hardened traveller.
Which brings to mind what thirsty work this writing is. It must be time for lunch and a long cold beer. Wow! We are going like a rocket and not a ripple on the froth. Cheers!
Awakening from afternoon slumber, I wonder where we are. Outlying housing estates flash by as we are welcomed, warmly, into Barcelona by the Mediterranean sun.
Did I enjoy the journey?? What do you think? And on Friday I get to do it all the way back again!
If this is retirement, encore! may there be much more.
