A soft jolt wakes the sleeping guests from their dreams as the Costa Verde Express leaves the small station of Viveiro at a walking pace. Early morning mist hangs over the coastal town in the far northwest of Spain.
The spicy Galician Albariño white wine served with lobster and octopus in the dining car the night before has kept most people asleep a little longer. The rhythmic rattle of the train doesn’t make getting up any easier. But in the hallway, the train crew is already ringing a bell: Breakfast.
In the dining car, the smell of warm croissants, fresh coffee, Ibérico ham and scrambled eggs wafts through the air. A stewardess in a white uniform points to an empty table with cloth napkins, fresh flowers and a small lamp with a yellow, marbled glass shade. Again and again, the passing coastal landscape tempts me to look out of the window.
Long sandy beaches alternate with rugged rock faces. In between, the train travels through dense forests and past old fishing villages. At a leisurely pace of 50 kilometers per hour, the Costa Verde Express travels over old narrow-gauge railways, sometimes just a few meters from the Cantabrian Sea. In some places, the route also runs parallel to the northern pilgrimage route of Spain, the Camino del Norte.
No express train
As the pilgrims walk along the Costa Verde, Spain’s ‘Green Coast’ that stretches along the northern province of Asturias, Julio Cesar Pallucchini and his wife Liliana enjoy the view over a café con leche in the wood-panelled, carpeted lounge of the Costa Verde Express.
“Fortunately, the train only partly lives up to its name,” says Julio. The Costa Verde, he says, is truly impressively green. On the other hand, Julio says he is glad that it is not an express train, but a slow affair, which allows you to contemplate the landscape in peace.
This is exactly the kind of slower way to travel he was looking for, he says. “And the good food, of course,” he says, laughing.
The train journey takes us through the Basque Country, Cantabria, Asturias and Galicia – the gastronomic strongholds of Spain, says Laura López. She is the chef on board the Costa Verde Express. And food certainly plays an important role on this train journey.
While the daily excursions consist of dining in restaurants, in the evenings Laura and her colleague Daniela prepare delicacies from the region where the train is currently stopping. Scallops and octopus in Galicia, wild salmon, fabada stew and cabrales cheese in Asturias, the Cocido Montañes stew in Cantabria, stockfish in the Basque Country.
The Spanish answer to the Orient Express
The Costa Verde Express is one of the so-called historical royal trains of the Spanish state-owned company Renfe. They are a kind of Spanish version of the Orient Express, reminiscent of train journeys from a bygone century.
The nostalgic Belle Époque-style train takes six days to travel the 600 kilometres between Bilbao in the Basque Country and the Galician pilgrimage site of Santiago de Compostela. Depending on the date, it runs in both directions.
This special train adventure began at the tomb of St. James the Apostle in Santiago de Compostela. Above the tomb is the cathedral, the final destination of the Camino.
The First Pilgrim and a Sistine Chapel
The train also stops in Oviedo, the capital of Asturias. The city’s cathedral was the starting point of the oldest Camino route. King Alfonso II of Asturias is said to have been the first pilgrim to ride from Oviedo to Galicia on horseback after the discovery of the apostle’s tomb in 812.
In Cabezón de la Sal in Cantabria, the train stops at the station, as it does every night, so that the passengers can sleep. Cool country air flows through the sliding window, crickets chirp.
The next morning, everyone realizes why the north of Spain is so green: it is raining cats and dogs. On the platform, the train crew hands out umbrellas for the day’s excursion. The bus takes half an hour to reach the Altamira Cave, often called the Sistine Chapel of the Stone Age.
The prehistoric cave paintings of bison, deer and horses are at least 14,000 years old. Today, only a lucky few who are selected by lottery can visit the original cave, wearing protective suits and masks to cover their noses and mouths. But there is hardly a noticeable difference between them and the replica of the cave next door.
Futuristic art temples
Lunch is 2 kilometres away in Santillana del Mar. Aristocratic coats of arms and wooden balconies covered with flowers adorn the stone houses. The Convent of the Poor Clares, Colegiata de Santa Juliana, is one of the most important Romanesque religious buildings in Cantabria.
In comparison, the elegant regional capital of Santander, with its magnificent Art Nouveau buildings, seems downright young. The silver-clad Centro Botín opened here a few years ago. A beautiful cultural centre, built right on the river promenade by the Botín banking family, owners of Santander Bank, it is home to contemporary avant-garde art.
But the Centro Botín can’t compete with the world-famous Guggenheim Museum in the Basque coastal metropolis of Bilbao. The building on the River Nervión, formed from silver titanium plates, resembles a giant napkin and can be seen from afar from the Costa Verde Express. The view heralds the end of the journey, because Bilbao is the final destination of this extraordinary adventure.
