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Disclaimer: The site storage is full… I will try to find a solution, but until then, no more pictures. :/

Today is the big day: I’m entering Portugal, the last country of the Great European Train Tour. But I have a bad feeling about this, and I’m not in the greatest of mood. Chiefly because of the shitty noisy night I just had.

I still walk a good bit in Sevilla to at least catch a glimpse of a few monuments. It’s a charming city rich with history, such a shame that I couldn’t see more.

The first train took three scenic hours to get me to Mérida [Mérida, Spain]. I thought I had been teleported in Australia’s outback or something. What a strange desertic landscape here in the Sierra Morena! And yet, it’s far from being without vegetation. That’s a kind of biome I had not yet experienced, at least in Europe.

Once in Mérida, I saw that there was a train to Badajoz, my next stop, in just 15 min, instead of the three hours I have to wait here. Should I try to change quickly my reservation? That wouldn’t change anything, I’d still won’t leave for Portugal until the evening, and that’d make me wait in Badajoz for almost four hours instead. I stick to the plan.

And I’m so glad I did! Mérida is amazing! It is full with Roman remains, everywhere: magnigically preserved temples, circus, aqueducts, bridge… It made wandering there for hours much more fun than it could have been.

Although I don’t understand anything about Spanish opening hours. Of course in the afternoon, every single shop was closed, but I had a drink at a bar around 5 PM, and it seems they were just about to close. Go figure.

Finally I boarded the train to Badajoz, and honestly, I dozed off pretty fast, waking up just in time for the station (which is the terminus anyway).

And that’s where disaster struck. I was expecting something to go wrong later, once in Portugal, since I had only 14 min to change train in Abrantes after over two hours of regional train. But the train to Abrantes never came. I talked with other travellers, and with the station staff: today, of all days, there is a train strike in Portugal. 20 min before planned departure, they got confirmation that the train will not come.

Oh. Shit.

Emergency replanning!

There didn’t seem to be any buses, and anyway, there was no shot I was crossing the LAST border to a new country by anything else than a TRAIN. This one is way too symbolic. So instead I found an hotel, not too expensive, but still likely in the top five most expensive accomodations of this trip, at 42 €. Oh well…

A young girl who was also going to Lisboa [Lisbon] was having quite a panic attack. She was acting very bitchy towards the poor Spanish staff which was for nothing in it, but I still tried to help her a bit. Not fun the first time you get into those situations.

In the end, I have a bed, and strike is not pursued tomorrow, according to the Spanish station staff, so nothing catastrophic. Still, it’s quite a mood killer, as I was quite hyped about hitting the final boss today. It also means only four nights in Portugal, so I’ll likely have to say goodbye to a destination.