Lorca travels to València
February 15 in Spain ⋅ ⛅ 18 °C
Yesterday we booked our travel ticket to Valencia with the train thru the Renfe train app. It was a smooth process, no warnings what so ever. It was a couple of hours by train more than going with the bus but debi gets car sick quickly so we preferred the train. We were set to go for today.
When we arrived this morning at the train station we could see that the station was under construction. We also could see that the train tracks were taken out ! So we could forget the train for sure.
We asked a regional bus driver what to do and he said Renfe would fix it by busses and pointed us out where to go. A lot of people were gathered at the pointed out spot but it was not clear to anyone when to expect a Renfe bus. When a new (yellow) bus came, however the bus driver was reluctant to give information to the gathered people, we didn’t even try given our level of understanding of Spanish. After fifteen minutes the situation had not changed.
I saw the driver of the yellow n bus chatting with another bus driver and stepped forward and asked what to do given our already paid ticket to Valencia. She said to wait, no idea for how long, at least i now knew the bus we should take would be blue…
Every piece of information helps…
Then twenty minutes later a blue bus came and would bring us to Murcia. No idea if we would still be able to get the train connection to Valencia.
Everybody traveling will recognize this situation. You want to go somewhere and not being able to speak the language means you are out of control. You have to use every bit of information you can get to figure out if you are doing the right thing. And that can be stressful if accommodation is already booked in the place you want to go.
We got to Murcia by blue bus, when we stepped out at Murcia station a Renfe employee was waiting and told people for Valencia to go to platform 8. We walked over to the station and another employee showed up, we showed our ticket and she told us to go to platform 7 which was at the other side of the station as all even platforms where left and all uneven platforms where right.
You get the picture… were we at the right platform in the end? By that time we didn’t care anymore. There was a train going from platform 7 to Valencia and if that was the one we needed to have .. no idea. We would be in Valencia tonight and have a bed we had paid for….
Don’t worry cause everything will be alright …
Valencia was a big surprise, this town must have been important in the history of Spain. We are going to see more of it tomorrow.
~G
We stepped out of the train station into Valencia. And wow! We have been in many Spanish cities, and this one appears to be among the most beautiful. Looking forward to exploring more tomorrow! ~debiRead more
Laurie ReynoldsEnjoy Valencia! If you have a day there, you will probably have time to visit Calatrava-land.
TravelerNo idea what you pointed out. And than i searched google and his architecture is really amazing. I am in for tomorrow. Thanks for your tip!
Laurie ReynoldsThere are lawsuits involving each one of those buildings I think. I was given a tour by a friend in Valencia, whose husband is an architect. He was not involved in these buildings, but she knew all the details of the many lawsuits. The one I remember is that there’s a large number of seats in a performance center that are totally blocked from any view of anything remotely near the stage. And there’s also some story about diverting a water source , because I think some of these buildings are built in what used to be a river bed. But I may be totally wrong about that..