Edinburgh airport. A picture may say a thousand words, but most of them for this one would be dreich.

The Spanish national railway website, renfe.com, may be many things. However, model of clarity isn’t the first thing that springs to mind.

Take, for a non-random example, getting a train from Madrid to Segovia. No problem, it says: you can get one straight from Barajas T4, which, to the uninitiated, is Terminal 4 at the airport (known as Barajas, although also, confusingly, as Adolfo Suarez sometimes, after the first post-Franco prime minister).

Which is sort of true. It just doesn’t tell you there are intermediate steps.

So. If you’re coming from the UK on a budget flight, you almost definitely won’t arrive at T4, which is the multi-award winning, Richard Rogers designed modern one. Not for the likes of you, Easyjet punter!

However, you can get there via a free shuttle bus which goes between Terminals 1, 2 and 4 (if you arrive at 3, you’re not completely stuffed – fairly sure you’d just walk to T2). Once at T4,  if you have time, take a moment to savour the architecture and design – it really is impressive – and then get the lift to the basement level, and the Renfe station.

Once there, you’ll find the barcode on your ticket – which, confusingly, says you’re going from Chamartin, one of the main Madrid stations, not T4 – lets you through the electronic barrier. After a couple of goes, probably. Don’t panic!

Pic: RHSP. You can read more about it here. Nuns optional.

You then arrive at a couple of platforms, with trains arriving fairly regularly and then setting off again for places like Recoletos and Principe Pio. You may never have heard of these places, but don’t worry: T4 is the end of the line for a couple of overground/underground train lines – Cercanias – that serve Madrid and its outskirts. Most, or indeed all, of these trains will take you to Chamartin. If in doubt, ask a local.

Once on the train, the ticket lady will check your ticket – again, don’t panic: there is, in tiny writing, the script that says this connection to the main station is included in the price. The journey to Chamartin takes ten minutes or so, with a couple of stops in Madrid’s graffiti-strewn hinterland on the way.

Chamartin doesn’t have the old-world charm of Madrid’s other main station, Atocha, but it’s modern and has plenty of places to refuel. I should have said at the start that you want to get a train to what the Renfe website calls ‘Segovia AV,’ also confusingly known once you’re on the train as ‘Segovia Guiomar.’ This is on the high speed line, which means you get there quickly, but do have a further journey from there into the city.

Madrid to Segovia. Scenery passing at speed.

 

You can get a number 11 bus from the station and it takes you to the Acqueduct, but frankly, having been on the go from about 9 in the morning and this now being half six at night, we’d had enough planes and trains and took a taxi (about 13 euros).

All very efficient, by the way, and the connections went like a dream. Knowing about the in between bits in advance, we allowed a couple of hours to change terminals and take the cercania into Chamartin, but that left us plenty of time.

Which takes us, literally, to Segovia: on which more later, but the initial signs are good!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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