My hotel room has all the amenities I could wish for: from air-conditioning and piped music through power sockets and Wi-Fi to fluffy towels made of Egyptian cotton and even a massage shower. At check-in I was not handed a plastic key-card, but a proper key dangling from a weighty copper key ring, which appeared to have been teleported straight from the belle époque. In the evening there is turndown service, so as I leave the restaurant, slightly tipsy, and retire to my room, everything is clean and polished, the lights are dimmed and I can jump straight into bed. Could well be a fine four-star.
But there is something peculiar about my hotel room: everything is tiny. The room measures two by two metres, and that includes the bathroom. Taking a shower involves bumping your knees and elbows into something every second, to use the toilet one must manoeuvre cautiously between wall and sink, and brushing your teeth is only feasible by sticking your bum out the bathroom door and into the bedroom. I have tried, any other way and it just does not work.
This is not just any hotel; it is a hotel on wheels. El Expreso de La Robla, as the train is chicly called, has sleeping cars full of such teeny but comfy compartments, a rolling restaurant for a hearty breakfast of scrambled eggs or Spanish tortilla, a bar carriage for a beer or a glass of wine and a lounge wagon with newspapers, magazines, movies, board games and cosy sofa’s. Each Thursday the express sets off from Bilbao to León and back – a leisurely four-day journey on a Northern-Spanish former coal railway line, with outings to odd little museums, mysterious caves and medieval mountain hamlets.
“May I carry your suitcase, sir?” Train steward Julio, dressed in a gilded uniform, awaits me on the platform of La Concordia, Bilbao’s doll-like art deco train station from 1898 – a befitting point of departure. Julio accompanies me to carriage number 1, compartment number 12, explains how air-conditioning, music and massage shower work and hands me the key. “Departure is at four, sir. Welcome drinks will be served in the bar car.”
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