My travel report - part 1

We had the most amazing holiday on the luxury train between León and Santander: visiting many interesting places and making some new friends too, which for me is the ideal holiday. I'm not a lying on the beach person. We stayed in Alicante for our first night before continuing to León via Madrid.  We had booked a hotel for one night in Léon as well, because the luxury train journey was starting in the morning so we didn't want to worry about being there on time.

As this blog is mainly about fashion, and I have already shared my travel wardrobe, I thought I would start by telling you how successful my holiday capsule was. Readers, I wore every item I had packed with the exception of the following: one pair of socks (in case it was cold, as my feet get cold easily. Luckily it was warm every day); a spider bag for any serious walking that we had to do (we didn't, as they took us by coach to the city centres and places of interest); and an umbrella because rain had been forecast (it didn't rain!)  I only wore my Mango jacket once, when we went out for dinner followed by a trip to the Casino in Santander on the last night of the train trip. As we were dropped off at nine o'clock I decided to wear the jacket, though it wasn't strictly necessary. Could I have coped with less items? Yes, if I was prepared to do some hand-washing, but this was billed as a luxury holiday so I wanted to take advantage of not flying and being able to take a larger case.

Sitting beside Gaudi, facing Gaudi's Casa Botines in León

Please note that I didn't include the hat shown above on my original packing list - that's because I bought it on impulse while wandering around Alicante! I'm not really a hat person, but it seemed like a sensible buy when I knew we would be walking in the sun - and Mr Over-60-and-over-here didn't shudder too much when I tried it on.

After a walking tour of León followed by some free time, we were taken by coach to the National Parador of San Marcos for a delicious lunch before joining our train at San Feliz.

Cava and canapés to welcome us on board our train

As we don't usually go on package holidays, we were a bit wary about what the other passengers might be like. We quickly bonded with David, an Australian travelling on his own, who had a similar sense of humour. We discovered that most of our fellow travellers were Spanish or from Spanish-speaking countries, however our tour guide Ana spoke excellent English and one or two other people knew a few words of English too. We decided to listen to Ana's explanations in Spanish as well as in English, to make up for our Spanish classes having finished for the summer! It was good to hear the English version too, in case we had missed something.

Our suite was a bit snug, which is to be expected on a train, but we had a double bed with room underneath for our cases, a wardrobe with plenty of hangers and a decent shower, so it was better than travelling on the trenhotel to France, which is my only other recent experience of long train journeys. We sorted out our bags then showered before changing for dinner, and decided to go to the lounge area so we could sit and enjoy the scenery.

The good news is that, once we reached the town of Cistierna, our train was staying there for the night so we had the chance of a decent night's sleep. The bad news, which Ana broke to us over dinner, was that we would be woken at 8 in the morning by the campanilla/bell!  There were a few groans when she announced this, however we knew we had a full day ahead of us so an early start made sense.

What was interesting was the fact that not many people dressed up or changed for dinner. When we're on holiday, John and I always like to take a shower or bath before changing for our evening meal, even if we're only wearing smart casual rather than dressy clothes. Somehow it doesn't seem like a holiday if we wear the same clothes that we wore during the day-time.  What about you? Do you like to dress up a bit for dinner when you're on holiday?