Spain’s high-speed network reaches Galicia

FOR CENTURIES the main way to Galicia, Spain’s north-western corner, was on foot, on the pilgrims’ trail to Santiago de Compostela. Poor roads meant that, until a decade or two ago, the drive from Madrid took nine hours. Recent improvements have cut the trip to the closest Galician city, Ourense, to about five.Now the journey can be made in two hours and 15 minutes thanks to Galicia’s first connection with Spain’s enviable high-speed railway network. Next year the line should be extended to Santiago, the regional capital, and A Coruña, its biggest city. “Cinderella can now travel in a bigger and more comfortable car,” said Ourense’s mayor, Gonzalo Pérez Jácome, using his nickname for his city, which he says is treated like an unloved stepchild. No one wants to be left out of the system—Spain has the biggest high-speed rail network in the world after China’s—but he doubts that the new extension will bring dramatic changes.