A slight jolt awakens sleeping guests from their dreams as the Costa Verde Express leaves the small Viveiro station at a walking pace. Morning fog hangs over the coastal town in the far northwest of Spain.
Spicy Galician Albariño white wine served with lobster and octopus in the dining car the night before kept most people dozing a little longer. The beginning of the train’s rhythmic noise doesn’t make it any easier to get up. But in the corridor the train crew is already ringing the bell: Breakfast.
In the dining car, the smell of warm croissants, fresh coffee, Iberian ham and scrambled eggs hangs in the air. A flight attendant in a white uniform indicates a free table set with cloth napkins, fresh flowers and a small lamp with a yellow marbled glass shade. Repeatedly, the passing coastal landscape encourages me to look out the window.
Long sandy beaches alternate with rugged rocky cliffs. In the meantime, the train travels through dense forests and old fishing villages. At a slow pace of 50 kilometers per hour, the Costa Verde Express travels along old narrow gauge tracks, sometimes just a few meters from the Cantabrian Sea. In some parts, the route also runs parallel to the northern Spanish pilgrimage route, the Camino del Norte.
It’s not an express train
As 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 scenery while sipping a café con leche in the carpeted lounge with wooden panels from Expresso Costa Verde.
“Thank God the train only partially lives up to its name”, says Julio. Costa Verde, he says, is truly stunningly green. On the other hand, Júlio says that he is happy that it is not an express train, but rather a slow train, which allows him to observe the landscape in peace.
This is exactly the kind of slower travel he was looking for, he says. “And the good food, of course,” he says and laughs.
The train journey takes us through the Basque Country, Cantabria, Asturias and Galicia – gourmet strongholds of Spain, says Laura López. She is head chef on board the Costa Verde Express. And food certainly plays an important role on this train journey.
While daily excursions involve dinners in restaurants, at night Laura and her colleague Daniela prepare delicacies from the region where the train currently stops. Scallops and octopus in Galicia, wild salmon, fabada stew and goat cheese in Asturias, Cocido Montañes stew in Cantabria, cod in the Basque Country.
Spain’s response to the Orient Express
The Costa Verde Express is one of the so-called historic royal trains of the Spanish state railway company Renfe. They are something like a Spanish version of the Orient Express, reminiscent of train journeys from a century ago.
The nostalgic Belle Époque-style train takes six days to travel the 600 kilometers between Bilbao, in the Basque Country, and the Galician pilgrimage city of Santiago de Compostela. Depending on the date, it goes in either direction.
This private train adventure began at the tomb of the Apostle Saint James 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, capital of Asturias. The city’s cathedral was the starting point of the oldest route on the Camino. It is said that King Alfonso II of Asturias was the first pilgrim to ride from Oviedo to Galicia 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 passengers can sleep. Fresh country air flows through the sliding window, crickets chirp.
The next morning, everyone realizes why northern Spain is so green: it’s raining a lot. On the platform, the train crew hands out umbrellas for the day’s ride. The bus takes half an hour to reach Altamira Cave, often called the Sistine Chapel of the Stone Age.
Prehistoric cave paintings of bison, deer and horses are at least 14,000 years old. Today, only a small number of lucky people can visit the original cave, wearing protective suits and masks to cover their noses and mouths. But there is hardly any noticeable difference from the replica cave next door.
Futuristic art temples
Lunch is 2 kilometers away, in Santillana del Mar. Aristocratic coats of arms and wooden balconies covered in 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, Santander, with its magnificent Art Nouveau buildings, looks downright young. The silver-paneled Centro Botín opened here a few years ago. A magnificent cultural center, it was built directly on the river promenade by the Botín banking family, owners of Banco Santander, and houses cutting-edge contemporary 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 banks of the Nervión River, made of silver titanium plates, looks like a giant napkin and can be seen from afar on the Costa Verde Express. The view announces the end of the trip, as Bilbao is the final destination of this particular adventure.
