Hendaye to Portugal

All sounds too good to run smoothly except that the train to take us from Hendaye never arrived. We were later informed that there will not be any trains going to Irun. Instead, replacement buses will be picking us up at the entrance of the station to take us to Irun. Not sure if this is sounding right but for a moment, I felt like a stowaway when we arrived at Irun and rushing to pick our luggage to run into the train station.

Here from Irun, it is more about getting ready for the announcement that our train arrived for us to start getting to the platform, finding our berth, getting to know our roommates for the night.

What is the berth in a RENFE train and the size? The length of a berth is the width of two single beds being ‘dropped’ down with just sufficient space for one adults to walk shoulder to shoulder to each lowered bed. Narrow as it can be, each berth can accommodate four passengers. During the day, the beds are pushed against the walls with the pillows in the compartment above us. As nightfall, the train officers will go from berth to berth to pull down the beds for the passengers. Each berth has some extra space for luggage to be stored under the lower berths and also piled up nearer to the windows one luggage on top of the other. An interesting experience which next time I make sure I have slimmer suitcase and backpack or myself being even slimmer.

Tip: If traveling using an overnight berth, best to be attired comfortably. The lady in our room seem to be a seasoned traveler. She had a pants under her skirt. At night she removed the skirt piece to sleep in her trackpants. By day as we arrived at our location, she pulled the skirt piece to cover up. Another tip, carry slim luggage as there is limited space in the berth and backpacks be sufficient to act as the pillow in bed. There is very limited space to place oversized backpacks as they might not fit into the space below the lower beds.