For two people who are used to spending a lot of time commuting on grubby Southern services along the south coast of England, it may come as a surprise that we love a train journey.
While I was hard at work in Berti from the area de autocaravanas at San Cibrao, ‘our man on the narrow-gauge railway’ had an exciting day out:
Spain’s Feve network is a long way off high-speed. The 1,000mm narrow-gauge lines, built in 1965, dawdle from Bilbao in the Basque country to Ferrol in Galicia, stopping at more than 100 stations along the way.
It’s small and somewhat ‘jittery’ and it’s unmarked on most Spanish railway maps, despite being a division of state-owned Renfe Operadora.
My starting point was San Cibrao, with the first challenge of crossing the single track to get onto the only platform. The ticket office and waiting room had long since been boarded up, and there aren’t any information boards, announcements or staff.
As the train was now due, I practiced “un billete de ida y vuelta a Ribadeo por favor”, a number of times. Embarrassingly, on my third attempt, a smiling lady emerged from behind a billboard – she’d obviously overheard me.
“Espera la bocina del tren primero”, she chuckled. Just as I Google Translated “bocina”, the train horn indeed sounded, and the two-coach service pulled in.
With only a handful of passengers onboard, a seaview seat was all mine, and as the driver gave the horn/bocina another blast before moving off, my moment with the conductor arrived.
He informed me that I must catch the return train “a las tres” otherwise there would be “una larga espera”. I didn’t like the sound of that so I’d be on the 3pm return for sure.
The train snaked through the lush and densely tree-lined hills and along the magical Galician rocky coastline. The sea dazzled and every now and then, I spied beautiful sandy beaches in small coves.
It was a gloriously slow train ride as we passed through tiny platforms, honking the horn/bocina, in the middle of nowhere. I later discovered that if there’s nobody waiting on the platform, and if nobody wants to get off the train, it doesn’t stop.
This became much clearer on my return journey when there wasn’t a conductor. Instead, the driver left his cab (unlocked, engine running) to ask every single person where they were going. This happened every time we stopped, and on at least two occasions he mustn’t have deployed the brakes properly as we were slowly rolling backwards!
The first part of my journey wound up at the characterful fishing town of Ribadeo and I couldn’t resist having a peak through the dirty stained-glass window into the old ticket office. These stations are clearly frozen in time.
After a two-hour meander, I needed to catch the 3pm train home, otherwise it would be another four hours until the next one. That is indeed “una larga espera”.
Chomping chorizo saladitos on the platform, I got talking to a chap about his memories of riding the Feve as a child. A cat stared down from a window in the station building, above a disintegrating tile map of the route.
“We used to have our own station master, he still lives in the building but now he has to work at a larger station in a nearby town,” explaining why this remote stop is now unstaffed.
Pleased with a chorizo saladito for information shared, he wished me a “buen viaje”, and with a grumpy sounding blast of the horn/bocina, my slow train set off down the narrow-gauge track back towards San Cibrao.
Slightly envious of missing out, we took another rail journey together, so that I could enjoy the Spanish countryside without the need to look for road signs, follow a map or reboot the sat-nav.
We didn’t really have a destination other than a turnaround point (hopefully with a café) – it was all about the train ride. Unfortunately, it wasn’t as scenic as Simon’s expedition, as the tracks passed through several tunnels and spent most of the time under a canopy of trees.
There were glimpses of rocky coastline and tiny hamlets high up in the hills before we arrived at La Magdalena, a small station atop a hillside with the sea way down below.
The conductor informed us that we had precisely 1hr 45mins before the return train or it would be “a night on the beach or a long walk home”. The 4pm train was the last of the day.
After scrambling down the almost vertical hill to the beach we were both stunned by the beautiful, curved bay and crashing surf. The beach was bleached white shingle and rocks and the water was emerald green and turquoise blue.
White crested waves rolled in and their braking boomed around the surrounding steep cliffs. It was a place to gaze and be silent.
Strolling along a wooden boardwalk, we spotted what looked like a bar at the end of the beach. As we got closer, we saw a packed car park and heard the sound of many voices. We had stumbled upon a popular beach restaurant where every table was reserved and hungry diners were being seated.
With the clock ticking, we perched on a bench and bravely sampled the house tapas, simple dishes of chorizo in hot cider and a plate of indescribable croquettes, the latter filled with an odd black paste.
Giving ourselves plenty of time for the hike back to the station, we left just as plates of spider crab and rice doused in black squid ink emerged from the kitchen. We love our seafood but this looked disgusting and the diners seemed about as impressed as we were. It felt like Casa Miguel needed to try a bit harder.
Having puffed our way back up the hill, now regretting eating too much chorizo, the train was five minutes late giving us time for a final view of the beach from up above.
