Trouble with Getting to Barcelona Is...

Feb 21, 2007

I should have seen today coming, what with yesterday's troubles, how could it be any different this time trying to get to Barcelona? We awoke at six and hurried to get out of the hotel to make the 6:50 train. At 6:40 we stumbled down the stairs to reception and found no one there... Because we had paid the night before - a welcome custom with many European hotels - we needed only return the key anyway. Pas de probleme, we thought. But then we discovered we were locked in! And I had told them of our 6:50 departure time! We fumbled with the door, searched frantically for anyone that might be about, and finally escaped when I managed to open the door.

We dashed to the train station, and to be sure I checked at information that the 6:50 train would go to Barcelona. It wouldn't. She said, You need to take the train towards Marseille and change at Narbonne. Well, that actually gave us a comfortable seven minutes more to spare. But the inconsistency with what I had earlier been told was troubling. (Now, mind you, all of this interchange has been in French, and I have been left wondering if I understand fully, if I haven't missed some subtlety)

Nonetheless, we got ourselves aboard the train and rode to Narbonne where we disembarked with several other people, all confused in their own way about getting to Barcelona. There were the Spanish women, who had tickets but were confused at how Barcelona was not appearing on the departures screen on the platform. There was a (French?) man with similar confusion, ourselves with railpass questions, and a young Englishman who couldn't speak a bit of French to save him. Again to the information desk... This time we learned that while there is a train to Barcelona from Narbonne, it wasn't running today! Meanwhile, the Spanish gals - who spoke some English - had been told they would ride a bus which was included in their ticket purchase. On the other hand, our presented option was to travel by train to Cerebere, the last French town on the Spanish frontier, from where we would take a taxi into Spain and catch a train again once in the Spanish town of Port Bou. Need I say it: The inconsistencies were troubling...

But how nice to have a new travel companion! Alec, the Englishman spoken of before, was by his own words "desperate" to get to Barcelona in order to see his hometown Liverpool football team (that's soccer to you provincial Yanks) play that same night. So, we all agreed - in that support group fashion common to foreigners abroad who are linked by a shared language which is not the local one - that we would ride to Cerebere, split the fare for a taxi and proceed on to Barcelona. Barring any other unexpected discoveries or information, of course.

It truly was a beautiful voyage into Cerebere. The landscape, which had been giving way all the time to more wine fields, palm trees, rocky hills and colorful houses with terracotta roofs, was coming to life with the morning sun breaking finally through an early haze. The light is different in the South, as Van Gogh and other painters have asserted when working in France. By the time we reached the Mediterrannean coast and almost Cerebere, all the little difficulties of the past hours seemed humorous again, and worth it.

There was a taxi waiting at the Cerebere station and its driver was a charming and vibrant older French woman. She asked our nationalities and we gave over our passports, as we would be crossing national boundaries. We piled into her Renault and as soon as we settled she took off like a shot.

Peter Mayle has said that all the French think they are racecar drivers. And now I believe it. She zoomed through the narrow streets of Cerebere and tossed the car back and forth as she wound us through the twisting hillside along a thin ribbon of two lane highway. She cut across the center lane on lefthand turns and pressed close to the low brick wall when making rights. She answered her cell phone and adjusted the radio as she dodged pedestrains and road workmen. She flipped through a handwritten notepad on the dash which had times written and issued forth a series of French profanities. It was evident at first that she wanted to get us to the next train leaving from Port Bou. But then when it was equally evident that we wouldn't beat the train, she pressed on as fast anyway.

Oh, yes, and the whole time Frank Sinatra was serenading the four us, all characters in an absurdist James Bond. He was blasting from the speakers at a decent volume as we blasted through the countryside at a decent rate. "I - love - Frankie - baby" she cooed in a comical American accent, part Brookly, part deep France, narrowly missing a huge contingent of bicyclists coming up the hill soon after. She issued forth a string of profanities. "It's not safe for them to be on the road" she complained, "C'est trés trés dangereuse."

And finally - after insulting a slower driver whom she identified as being from Bordeaux and declaring the supremacy of her birthplace, the coast - we arrived in Port Bou, a little French whirlind blown into Spain. We paid the fare and walked away, still in amazement at our high speed chase - all without the chase.