First Train Travel

Lisbon was fun, but it’s time to move on now. I’m writing this post from a hostel in Marseille, France. What am I doing in France, and why did I skip Spain, you ask? Scheduling issues. Tomorrow I am meeting up with Aunt Brenda in Nice, so I had to skip Spain in order to make it there. Maybe I’ll make time to come back later in the trip, or maybe it’ll just have to be another trip entirely, but either way it’ll be fine. There’s lots to see, and I can’t see all of Europe in five weeks.

The trip from Lisbon to Marseille took me about 24 hours. I don’t have many photos of the trip, because I was trying to conserve battery life on my phone, but I do have a few, so here they are.

Firstly, on the train from Lisbon to Madrid I made a friend. Here he is:

Sorry it’s such a bad photo, he didn’t want to show his face. He didn’t speak English at all, so it was a good opportunity for me to practice my Spanish. He’s Brazilian, native to the São Paulo area, and in a few days he will be flying to Canada.

The Spanish countryside is beautiful, but quite desert-like in places. The train was traveling at 300km/h so all the pictures I took were kinda blurry, but here’s one of the sun rising over a distant mountain.

And one a few hours later showing the countryside a bit better:

The train station in Madrid had some interesting alternatives to escalators:

The French countryside is littered with ruins of old stone buildings or minor castles, but at 300km/h I didn’t have enough time to get the camera out and snap a picture of any of them before they passed by. Here’s a photo of a castle we passed while we were slowed down going through a city:

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Over all, the trains were quite impressive. They ran quietly, we’re comfortable, and didn’t rock too much. I was able to sleep fairly well during the ride. The train stations themselves did get a little confusing, but I’ll get used to it.

Finally, here in Marseille taxi drivers demand payment in a strange way…

Talk to you again soon!

Stuart