I am not quite sure how we landed on the idea of going to the North of Spain in mid-April, given our search for ‘better’ weather. Maybe we were just being optimistic, hoping that by the time we left the weather everywhere would have improved.

Sadly, this was not the case: it was heinously wet and windy in England just before we left and likely to be  wet in Spain. The rain was definitely not staying on the plain!

Spain is one of our favourite countries to visit.  We speak the language, we have visited enough to have a rough understanding of how things work (although most of our experience has been in the south or in Catalunya) and the weather is usually warmer than in the UK – and definitely drier.

Except in ‘Green Spain’ – which is possibly wetter than the UK.

Given that we have the time, we have the money and I am developing a healthy hatred for airport fannying about, we decided to travel out to Bilbao via train; returning via airplane.

Once again, the Man in Seat 61 gave invaluable advice: Eurostar to Paris, then take a train all the way to the Spanish/French border, via Bordeaux.  Honestly, the man is a veritable fount of knowledge about train travel!

Train schedules don’t allow us to take the first Eurostar out: the earliest we can get to London St Pancras is 06:45 – which isn’t quite enough time for the 07:01. This then has a knock on effect on arrivals – so we chose to break our journey in Bordeaux for two nights and then again in Hondarribia, which is just inside the Spanish-French border. ‘Unpredictable’ weather made packing challenging but I’m sure everyone will be relieved to hear that I am only taking two pairs of shoes, one of which is more waterproof than the other.

Waterproof jackets and umbrellas also feature heavily.

It was still dark when we left the house but the birds were definitly awake (moreso than we were) and, despite the lowering clouds, it wasn’t raining – bonus!

It’s quite a peaceful journey into London at that time – there were very few people about, the stations looked fairly neat and tidy, it’s quiet; even at London Bridge. As we went over Blackfriars Bridge on the Thameslink service, the sun was just coming up and the clouds had cleared, giving us a picture perfect view to the east – St Paul’s cathedral looked wonderful.

The blue sky stayed with us until we emerged from the tunnel in France – then it was grey, grey and more grey. And it’s flat, flat and more flat all the way to Paris.

We had allowed nearly two hours to transfer from Paris Gard du Nord to Paris Gard de Montparnesse – it took us no more than 40 minutes. Thankfully, both Roger and I had read various accounts of how to do this transfer by metro – and we read different ones – so we had some idea of the pitfalls and tricks to locating Line 4 on the Metro (beware the unmarked right hand turn!) and the travelator to the train station (the train station is a fair ways from the metro station). But we made it – and then had plenty of time to kill.  One top tip: purchase your metro ticket on the Eurostar – you can buy singles (as opposed to books of five or ten).  I suspect they are a few cents more expensive but you save the queues at the ticket machines.

Montparnesse is a monumental, concrete station, reminiscent of a reinforced bunker. There is a flashy shopping centre next to it (maybe even in front of it) but the concrete becomes all too clear when you get to the platforms.

Leaving Paris, it was (once again) flat, flat and more flat. Huge fields (flat ones) of young, soft-green crops contrasted violently yellow swathes of oilseed rape, which in turn luminesced against khaki-grey clouds.

This persisted for most of the journey. The Wi-Fi on the train was dreadful – not worth using – but the view from the upstairs level was great – if a bit boring after a while.  After a while, fields of green interspersed with bright yellow and punctuated with the occasional wind turbine become a bit boring.

As we got closer to Bordeaux, the countryside rolled a bit more and the flourescent yellow of the rapeseed was replaced by scrubby trees and sunny-yellow flowering gorse.

Eventually the vineyards started: mostly seried ranks of twigs but towards the end of our train ride more leaves became apparent. They harvest in late September, early October here, so no surprise things aren’t quite in full leaf yet.

Bordeaux St-Jean station is large, late 19th century and the exits and entries are constricted by fencing – presumably in an effort to ensure that everyone goes through the ticket machines.  I applaud monitoring payment but the queues got a bit squashy.

Having left our house at 05:30 in the morning, we walked out of Bordeaux St-Jean at 16:10.

It was raining!