I am at the point in my travels where I was supposed to be using a Europass to travel Europe by train.
I bailed on that plan a month ago after taking a 20-hour train trip up and down the Vietnam coast. I realize that taking a train across Europe would be a lot nicer than Vietnam but sitting in coach would be the same back breaking experience.
Here was the plan, and I still feel good about my decision as it is time to go home:
I did get a chance to take a train from Naples to Rome, which was pretty awesome and had me second-guessing. The ten-day Europass was an amazing deal, but taking the train once scratched that itch for $13 USD.
It was not the highspeed train as that was $60 and would have been an hour a half instead of four hours.
Since I enjoyed my first train experience in Europe, I followed it up with another train trip later that week!
This time, I took the smoking fast-speed train between Madrid and Barcelona, Spain.
The train almost hit 300KM/H (292KM hour was the highest I noticed as I fell in and out of sleep for the three-hour trip.) Imagine a flight doing ~500KM/H is about an hour and a half, and the train doing ~300KM/H is about three hours.
Amazing!
I had taken the “Chunnel” from London to Paris in the past, but this was a great reminder of how fast train travel can be compared to flying. The line at the train station was a lot longer than most airports, as they do not have the same setup, which can delay travel.
Lucky for me, I am a dumbass and went to the wrong departure station. Once I realized it, I took a 15-minute taxi to the correct station and cut to the front of the line with my sob or SOB story, so it took less than five minutes as opposed to over an hour.
It was stressful, but it worked out perfectly as I did not sleep. I landed in Madrid and took the subway to the City Center and there was a football game on, so I jumped into the fun without finding a hostel.
After the game, I grabbed some tapas and beer and quickly found out that the prices were $150 euros that night. After a bit of panic, walking in the rain and soul searching my shitty situation, I headed to the wrong train station. It all worked out amazingly as always!
Check out all those tapas and awesome local beer!
The closest I have ever experienced Tapas is when a Ukrainian whips up a meal with whatever is in the fridge, and it turns out to be a five-star meal. Same idea, a little bit of everything and refilling your plate.
What an amazing sequence of events, which is why I love to travel so much!