A Little Adventure

Today is a public holiday in Madrid for the patron saint, San Isidro. So we decided to head out to the country. Actually we decided to go to the mountains. We found a slight glitch when we got to the main station at Chamartín: due to engineering works, we would have to get off the train at Los Molinos (the stop before Cercedilla) and take a special bus to Cotos. It seemed fairly straightforward, so we did it, along with several other people who were obviously kitted out for some serious walking.

However, when we got to Los Molinos, the train doors declined to open. We ran down the carriage to another set of doors, and they failed too. The train continued on to Cercedilla. We hammered on the windows to attract the attention of some security guys who pressed the button from outside, obviously thinking 'who are these morons who can't open a train door?'

We pointed out the problem to the ticket inspector and the driver, who were both massively uninterested in doing anything about it. 'Get back on,' they said, 'we're leaving in ten minutes.'

So we did get back on, choosing a different carriage, and when we got back to Los Molinos, the ticket inspector pressed the button and off we got. Of course we had missed the bus up the mountain, and the next one was an hour and a quarter away.

So we strolled into Los Molinos, and found a very pleasant little town with some excellent bars and restaurants. We abandoned the mountain plan, and spent the day there.



The main street with snow-capped mountains in the background.



The restaurant where we had lunch is a converted ice factory.



Fields and mountains.



The Guadarrama River runs through it.



There are plenty of trees and green stuff in and around the town. But despite the brilliant sunshine, if you weren't actually in it, it was pretty cold (apparently the temperature here is always 5 degrees less than Madrid: I guess it's at least 1km above sea level). They always get snow in winter.

A totally unexpected day out. Thank you, San Isidro.

Cercedilla and Cotos

We had a brilliant day out today, to Cercedilla which is in the mountains to the north, on the way to Segovia. MamaDuck had been told about this place by some of her work colleagues. Their advice was that when you got off the train, you change for a smaller one that chugs its way higher into the mountains. This line ends at a place called Cotos (remember this, it's important), but we jumped off at the first stop, Cercedilla Pueblo.

What we needed to do was
a) Have coffee, and
b) Buy some bread to go with our picnic.

Wandering around the pretty pueblo, we discovered that there were no cafés, and no shops. So we walked back down the hill to Cercedilla proper, had some coffee, bought some bread, and then headed off up a pine-wooded mountain. It was fantastic to be away from the city, to see cows, to be surrounded by green stuff and country noises rather than city noises. Much of the noise was generated by the grazing cows, whose bells would bong whenever they chewed a mouthful of grass.

We clambered around the woods for a few hours, and headed back to the railway station around mid-afternoon. There was a certain amount of confusion at the station. Nobody there, including the RENFE station manager, knew which platform the train for Madrid would arrive on. We were advised to listen for announcements. There were a couple of dozen boisterous and happy students on the platform with us. By default, when you leave the ticket office, you are on platform 4, and it is theoretically possible that Madrid-bound trains could stop there. But they could also stop at platform 1 or 2, which are reached via an underpass.

When we were about 10 minutes away from the departure time, the RENFE signature tune was played over the speakers. Everyone fell silent to listen. The pre-recorded voice said 'proxima tren por...' (next train for...). Then the station manager said 'Cotos'. And then the machine-voice said 'via tres' (platform 3).

This was repeated a few times, and our companions heading for Madrid began making jokes about it. Hell, we all desperately wanted some advance warning of where the Madrid train was going to be - everybody had rucksacks, some had guitars, a few had mountain bikes. The last thing anyone wanted was to have to do a twenty-second dash through an underpass.

Announcements for Cotos continued. Probably two dozen in all. Someone compared the announcer's accent to that of failed Presidential candidate Mariano Rajoy. The next time the announcement was made, the Rajoy joke was extended to reveal that the name of the little girl (la niña) who spoke to Rajoy in his dreams and was his inspiration during the election campaign was... 'Cotos.'

It was all screamingly funny, and yes, about one minute before the train was due, we were told it would be on platform 1, so we all had to do the tunnel-scramble. Although there was a bit more confusion because Cercedilla station has both a platform '01', and a platform '1'.

We all boarded the train. As it happened, MamaDuck and I were in the same carriage as the students. There was another group of students and a mountain of rucksacks already in place in that coach. At the next stop, a third bunch got on. It was fun to start with, but after about ten minutes of the noise I would have quite happily jumped out of the window.

Finally we arrived at Madrid. We had overheard that most of them would be getting off at Nuevos Ministerios, the stop before ours. They all managed to get off with their kit, and there were a few minutes of silence. Then the train announcement said 'Proxima Parada...' (next stop...), and the remaining students all yelled 'Cotos!'

Oh, how we laughed. But I don't think anyone who was waiting for the 1534 to Madrid at Cercedilla station today will ever be able to hear the word 'Cotos' again without cracking up.