Irun

Short hop through the station and a cursory security check and I am on the Sud Express. I´m in a cabin with Jose (a balding, friendly man with a neat moustache and a colourful jumper) and a melancholy elderly lady. When the conductor comes to make up the beds Jose and I head for the bar, where I am rescued from my painfully slow phrasebook Portuguese, by a youngish man with a pony tail and a firm grasp of the Queen´s English. He says he is an electrician and like the Super Mario Brothers. This conjures a surreal image until I realised he meant he was a plumber, though more traditional than the crazy, jumping Italians. Ordered a beer, ended up with several and a simple looking burger, then bed.

TRAVELLERS TIP: Don´t be tempted to push the flush early on the Sud Express. To discourage such frivolity the lid is rigged to come down with embarrassing consequences.

Everyone in our cabin woke early at the Spanish-Portuguese border, we turned the lights on, sat around then we went back to sleep. I don´t really know why.

A little later someone ran up and down the corridor with a bell, to warn of an obscure station. A little later still the elderly lady got a phone call with bad news, as such early morning phone calls often are. She started to cry and Jose woke to comfort her but this seemd to involve a slightly insensitive chuckling on his part. This made me think perhaps it was a beloved pet who had past away.

This particular line is wonderful because one wakes up to the incredibly beautiful landscape of Northern Portugal, red and white towns peacefully crumbling in shady forests of stiff, straight trees, a huge lake with morning mist blurring a bright orange sunrise. The train is slower than the French TGV but it is still difficult to take photographs, achingly lovely scenes, are perfectly framed for a second then gone. You either have to bring a lot of batteries and glue yourself to the window or just enjoy it and later make do with a schmaltzy description on your blog.

After breakfast, that Jose kindly bought, he continues to laugh at the old lady´s troubles. Her name is Maria Feliz, and she does seem to be happier now. She shows off her new mobile phone to us, though we had heard the ring tone several times already as she slowly searched her bag for it to be informed of new developments in the feud.

Jose leaves at Palabro, Maria and I get on famously using Francoguese. We stop in Fatima, which Maria has visited three times. I stare out of the window and Maria kindly keeps me from falling asleep by informing me of the location of various hospitals. She also points out her home, or at least the hill which is behind. Unfortunately she must go to Lisbon and then drive all the way back there, because there is no stop near by.

We pass some kids doing football training in Entrecamento. Apparently, I was informed last night, Ronaldo is from Maderia rather than the mainland. So is Nelly Furtado. The men at the bar last night said that this is because the beer is so cheap in Portugal one has little time for greatness.

Maria speaks louder and louder to her French son as we get closer to Lisbon. She has made the 13 hour journey between the brothers often in the past 17 years. She is not pleased with the influence of her French daughter-in-law, slotting neatly into the stereotype of mother-in-laws across the globe. She empashises points with the phrase "Beaucoup, beaucoup, beaucoup".

When we arrive I wish her good bye, she wishes me a healthy trip and goes to find her son.