Tag Archives: buses

On The Track Again

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… and the road as well, of course.

We were up before 6:00 to be sure and get ready to catch our taxi to the train station. We weren’t able to take advantage of the breakfast today, and this is a note to myself to remember that buying breakfast at a hotel might not be the wisest move. Check your train schedule first! The station (Segovia Guiomar) is a bit of a drive outside the city of Segovia. When we arrived at the station the meter said 15€, which was more than our drive to the city. Then when he plugged in the fee on the device for using a card he put in 16.40€. Heh. I guess he gave himself a tip.

We were there plenty of early: security wasn’t even open. But that gave us a lot of time for our breakfast and then just sitting around. Looking at the board we saw our train would be late in arriving. I checked the Renfe site and if a train is 15 minutes late I think we get 25% of our payment back. I’m hoping so, since I paid far too much for this train. We aren’t on the high speed Ave train, but the slightly slower Tren Alvia. If I’m remembering correctly it can go on the high speed track but also the other, which is why we needed it, I guess.

When we finally boarded our car was at the far end … of course! According to the schedule we had one minute to get on, but there were people working on the train who were standing outside and I’m certain they were watching to be sure we all got on. It turned out Dan and I are sitting behind each other. Hm. My mistake? I really don’t believe so, but who knows. There was a man in Dan’s seat, but he quickly moved.

This is not a fancy train. The seats are in somewhat tattered condition, and it’s just less slick than the Ave, but it is a step up from some of the trains we’ve been in (and even more than a step with some in the past!). We stopped at two stations before we reached the one that is the end of the train line for us when we had to transfer to a bus.

I was checking the real time schedule and it was kind of funny: they updated the delayed train times, listing our arrival at 10:37, but still had the originally scheduled bus time up of 10:30. Believe it or not I wasn’t at all worried, though. (Just a bit miffed we had to move to a bus!)

When the train stopped in Miranda de Ebro we were all instructed to disembark so we could take the bus.

Everyone congregated near the train exit, and eventually we all walked around the block to the buses. No instructions were given so we just went to one, I got on to secure seats together and Dan put the backpacks where luggage is stored. While we sat there Dan suddenly thought to go ask and make sure we were on a bus to Bilbao. Turns out the other two buses would have gone directly, while ours was stopping in Llodio, but at that point there were no spaces on the direct buses. I watched as he talked (and laughed) with one of the train people. Turns out she has relatives in Santa Clara so he said she should visit. Apparently she replied, “Maybe in four years!” Gee, I wonder why?! (Sigh.)

The bus was a typical bus — very little room and of course no food services, but who would expect that, right? But here’s the thing: we all were in the same situation, but some of us paid for the most expensive train seats while others did not. Turns out we really should have gone cheap on this particular trip; I think this was one of the most expensive trains we had! (And of course I should probably have canceled and purchased cheap seats when we were told we’d have to take the bus. Hindsight is so darn useful, right?

And then we were off. Slower than a train, but faster by far than walking so whatever! I only snapped a few photos, as it wasn’t all that easy to shoot because of the freeway (if they call it that here) was in the photos.

We arrived in our next, and final, Spain city …

Hello Bilbao!

Getting out to the bus we managed to find our way to our hotel, a whopping seven minutes away. We couldn’t get into our room yet, but we could check in and drop off our luggage.

Then we walked to a square called Nueva Plaza. It was full of people. The center, which was blocked off by tape, was holding a “Free Palestine” event. We sat on the outside of that area and ordered pintxos and drinks. It was crazy noisy, but it was Bilbao and we were happy to be in the city. Dan had had a hankering for a Gilda (a particular favorite pintxo of his), and it was fun to finally have one.

I’m not sure what this small parade was about …

After sitting for a good amount of time we walked a bit since it still was too early to get into our room (we had to wait until 15:00). Because we had to use up more time we had to get gelato. Makes sense, yes?

And then we could get in so we went to the hotel and got our key. We went up to our room, and the housekeeper was still at work! Thankfully there were chairs by the door and we just waited there until she finished.

Then we went to get into the room. Neither of our key cards worked! Dan went back downstairs to the front desk, and I watched our luggage. Then the housekeeper saw me there and when she realized I couldn’t get in she gave me a key that did get me in. By the time Dan got back upstairs I’d gotten the luggage in the room, but we did verify the keys he brought back did actually work.

The room is large and will be just fine.

We are above a spot where there are crowds and when I opened the window it was very noisy, but when I closed it it was amazingly quiet. Good thing, since we were both pretty tired and needed short naps!

A bit later I would feel like I had to take the “amazingly quiet” bit back because suddenly some sort of music was playing and it was quite loud, as I think this video will show. And SO many people. It’s quite the lively place!

Ah … but, as it turned out, I hadn’t closed the door completely, thus it was noisier. That was a relief to realize.

After resting a bit, writing more of this entry, and hanging out a bit, we went to explore. The crowds, to be honest, are a bit of a shock after the other places we’ve been on this trip. Maybe it’s just because it’s Saturday, so we’ll see what tomorrow brings. We walked a while, just checking things out.

Right near the last photo was a building that housed a number of pintxos restaurants (if that’s what they call these little spots), and we ordered a few and enjoyed them with our first vermut. (Who knows, could be our last as well, as we are limiting alcohol consumption more than we used to.) Another Gilda was enjoyed, along with a few other things.

We did more walking, leaving the old part of the city, eventually entering an area with a lot of popular brand name stores. We were looking for a place to eat a bit more for our dinner, but weren’t having much luck, but the crowds, again, were really something else.

(The second to last photo above is of our hotel.)

But wouldn’t you know it … we ended up at the same square where we had lunch. This time we ate inside a place (yes, noisy!), and just had a few more things and our 0.0% alcohol beers.

Getting back to our hotel Dan opened the door to let some fresh air in. It was about 21:30 and the noise outside was still wild and crazy. I wonder if they have rules about how long it can go on. I’m guessing so. But I’m going to bet it’s not 20:00 when it has to stop!

But thus ends our very long day. I’m not sure, at this point, what tomorrow will bring. We have a few things on the list, but we’ve yet to decide what we’ll do. Stay tuned!

Gau on! (Basque for goodnight, I hope. I’ve read two different suggestions. “Gau on” and “Gabon”.)

Strike One, So Bus It Is

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We knew today would be a slow day since we either had a train or bus midday, so we arrived at the breakfast room after 8:00. Throughout the night, when I was awake, I’d check the train site and see no news about cancelations and also saw that they were still selling tickets for today’s trains. Same thing when I woke. Same thing when in the breakfast room.

Then Dan checked the news. All trains were canceled.

I guess the train company will still happily sell tickets? Or maybe once you get to the payment page it then doesn’t work. Who knows? But in any case, this saved us a trip to the train station to see if our train would be one to still be working. I’m tremendously grateful for the Facebook Portugal page I visit: a man who lives here had suggested to everyone visiting that we schedule a bus just to be on the safe side. If we didn’t use it, the loss was rather minimal (for us it was under $10). I’m not sure if I can get refunded the $34 we paid for the train, but that, too, isn’t a huge amount so if we don’t get it returned I won’t be weeping buckets.

After breakfast Dan spent time writing in his journal, and I spent time trying to communicate with a few people. For some reason email wasn’t sending via the Apple mail app today, yet the outgoing mail would disappear. Ah, the woes of my life! (JOKING!) So on to the browser I went, and emails were sent. (That last sentence is your poem for the day, btw.) Showers were taken. And then, after packing, it was time to go downstairs to see if we could print up our luggage tags the bus company provides, as well as our bus tickets. Yes, they could. Done.

We walked to the bus station and eventually our bus showed up. It was nearly full, but we all have assigned seats so no problem getting to where we needed to be. Then off we went.

About an hour and twenty minutes later we were at the Porto Campanhã station. Hello Porto! We were told by our walking company, Portugal Green Walks, to meet our driver at the ticket area for the train station rather than at the bus end of the building. It was a trek, but we got there (he was probably waiting for a good fifteen minutes), and our driver took us to our hotel. We are staying at the Porto Neya hotel. It’s very “green oriented” and is quite a nice hotel. Green Walks is responsible for choosing this hotel for us, and they are in charge of the next six nights as well, so I look forward to seeing where we will be staying!

After getting situated in our room we walked east (at least I think it’s east) to the Ribiera to see if we could get a light meal. Heh. Hardly need to write “if” as it’s a huge tourist spot. The meal wasn’t cheap, but still quite welcome.

Then it was back to the hotel. I didn’t really think to take more than this one photo below. I think my brain is still on the bus.

We were to meet soon with someone from Green Walks to go over our trip. He arrived early, and we went down to meet him and get what we needed. This company is quite organized: we have a booklet, vouchers for our stays and boat trip, a map app (really a bike app but it works for walkers as well) that will even let us know if we are off route, and they also gave us t-shirts and a power bank. Nice!

Then back to our room we went, and eventually we had to decide what to do for dinner. Dan did a bit of a search (at least I think so) for spots, but because our hotel is a bit away from the main drag, and because we know tomorrow is an early rising day, we finally opted to go to the rooftop bar and see if they had things that were going to fill us up enough that we could just eat there. The server said they had “snacks”. Now, to us, snacks means things like potato chips, olives, peanuts, and the like. But we decided to give it a go. He brought the menu. Ohhhh riggghhhht. “Snacks” means “tapas”! So there was certainly enough to fill us and keep us from going to the restaurant at the hotel (which would have been much more expensive). The view was lovely, and we had a very relaxing time.

ADDED NOTE: Oh … I nearly forgot: the bar is on the rooftop. The restaurant is on the ground floor. My guess is the food comes from the latter. I noticed a robot bringing food to our server. I felt like I was in the Jetsons!

Back at our room I thought to shoot a photo through our window, despite the reflections. The smarter person in the room went and opened the door. Heh. Right … that works better! As I wrote earlier, I think I left my brain on the bus. I feel sorry for the person who finds it!

Tomorrow is our first 6:00 AM day. I think, though, with the upcoming excitement, it won’t be all that difficult to handle that.

Boa noite!