Oh what a day!  

It started well enough – a splash of light rain, a walk by the river, chocolate y churros, some sunshine and a bench in a square overlooking the cathedral out of the wind.  So far, so good. 

Enough of this lounging, I thought. Let’s get on with organising tickets for the train to León.  I tried the UK Trainline app and there was a problem inputting some of the required info. So I tried on the Renfe website and there was a problem importing some of the required information. 

Paul had already bought his ticket. 

Oh well, we thought, no problem, we’ll just buy them at the station.  Nina and I walked the 5 km to the station (Paul caught the bus).  We told the ticket man our requirements and the computer said ‘NO’ – the train is full. I argued that surely that couldn’t be possible, but the man (and the computer) were insistent. Definitely no seats available. 

Well, I’m not easily put off a task so I took a seat and once again tried to buy a ticket online. Trainline came up trumps this time. I secured myself a ticket. Yay!!

But…when I attempted the same process to get one for Nina I was told there were none available. Oh no. What a disaster. I felt terrible. My heart raced with stress. 

One more attempt. This time on the Renfe website once more. And finally success. Oh my goodness, what a relief. 

I wanted to go back to the ticket man and tell him that he had misinformed us and that we had secured tickets despite him, but Nina held me back. 

We’re still not sure how the next days will transpire. The weather looks grim – not at all conducive to mountain walking. Vamos a ver!

In the event there were several spare seats in my carriage alone. I’m totally baffled as to why we weren’t able to buy tickets at the station.