Rail journey of the month: Lisbon to Vigo via Porto, past dunes, rivers and the Atlantic

Our slow travel expert enjoys the cross-border Celta train between Portugal and Spain, and not only because it costs just €5.25

It should not be that difficult to reach Portugal by train. About 15 years ago, I travelled from Berlin to Lisbon with just a single change of train in Paris. But despite great improvements in Spain and Portugal’s domestic networks, cross-border services between the two countries have been woefully neglected. There have not been any direct international passenger trains to or from Lisbon since before the pandemic.

One notable international train departure from the Portuguese capital last year was a one-off special train called the Connecting Europe Express (CEE). As part of the celebrations around the European Year of Rail, the CEE left the Portuguese capital with great fanfare on 2 September 2021 on a meandering journey through 26 countries, travelling via Rome, Athens, Warsaw and Stockholm to eventually reach Paris five weeks later. It was a journey designed to showcase how railways unite Europe. The CEE’s slow progress from Portugal to Spain on a route not otherwise used for passenger trains, however, really highlighted just how poor some cross-border connections are.