¡Listo!

If there's one thing I'll give Spain credit for, in terms of reliability, punctuality, and overall organization, it is their train system.  Obviously, Europe is famous for having better public transportation than most cities (especially those in the States), which is clearly evident in Sevilla.  Buses are everywhere and so are bus stops, which are conveniently marked with the route number of the bus you want to take.  Sevilla doesn't have the most accomplished metro, but it goes pretty far, has frequent stops, and is impeccably clean (though that is probably due to the fact that it's pretty brand-new, having opened in 2009).  There's also a tram that runs the length of Avenida de la Constitución, the main drag of downtown Sevilla, and a bit beyond it; while it's slow, I suppose it cuts walking time at least by half.  Sevilla also has the incredibly innovative system of public bikes, called "Sevici."  These public bicycles can be parked at several stations all over the city.  What you do is you check out a bike, use it for 30 minutes max (although you can swipe your card again for an additional 15 minutes), and then park it at a different Sevici station closer to your destination.  It's ingenious, really.


As for transport outside of the city, depending on how far you have to go, taking the train is a wonderful option.  As you would probably guess, it serves closer destinations better, but with the high-speed AVE train (which I will be taking to Madrid when my parents are here!  So excited!), you can easily get to Barcelona from Sevilla in 6 or so hours, whereas before the invention of the AVE it would take maybe 12 to 13.  Crazy, right?  And the normal trains don't go slowly either, by any means, maxing out at 160 km/h.  I don't know how many mph that is, but it sounds like a lot nonetheless.  Anyway, trains are cheap, fairly fast, and efficient.  No train arrived more than 10 minutes late on my entire weekend excursion, which involved taking 4 different trains over the course of two days.  (More on that in a separate blog post.)  The platform was always announced in a timely fashion, and boarding was easy.  The RENFE website is a bit difficult to figure out if you don't speak Spanish, and sometimes there are problems with paying, but otherwise, it's fine.  Tickets can also be bought at the station.


What surprises me is that for a country that seems to be so nonchalant about punctuality and reliability and warning people in advance if something changes, the train system is very tightly run.  Even in the big stations (which evidently usually doubly serve as shopping malls, as we found out in Málaga), things are easy to find and get to in enough time to catch the train.


Not to mention, the smaller stations are absolutely gorgeous.  Every one is different, and every one has some kind of decorative aspect to it.  The two smaller stations I got to visit this weekend were in Jerez de la Frontera and Dos Hermanas.  (I also went to Sevilla's other train station, San Bernardo, which is closer to my house, to go to Jerez the first day.  It's ugly, like what you'd expect a metro tunnel to look like, but I'm not counting it in the "beautiful small stations" category because (a) it's underground, and (b) it's in a big city.)  Jerez is actually a fairly decent-sized pueblo, but Dos Hermanas is essentially a suburb of Sevilla, maybe what Fuquay-Varina is to Raleigh.  For example, here is the station at Jerez de la Frontera, photographed here with my neighbor, María, turning to look at me: