<< take the Lusitania Hotel train from Madrid at 22:00 to Lisbon via Caceres, get off at the Santarem, Portugal station around 7:25 a.m., and take the express train to Fatima. then take the train express from Fatima to Porto up to Vigo. Stay overnight at Vigo and then take the early train to Santiago. >>
In case you weren't aware: 'express trains' (aka rapidos) are (very) slow trains.
A TRD (all reserved) around 08:30 from Vigo gets you to Santiago at 10:00 - it's a good one; although I had to threaten to call the Encargado to get some young Spanish guys out of my reserved seat. They do that: buy a regular second class ticket and get on the TRD. If the Encargado catches them, they're off the train. I'm sure they were extra bold with me at first because they figured I didn't know enough Spanish (or Galego) to be able to lodge a complaint. They were wrong!
I recommend the Hotel America in Vigo: just a block from Plaza de Compostela and a block in the other direction to Puerto Deportivo (Marina). The only reason it is a 3-star is it doesn't have a full service restaurant. It does have a breakfast/sun room on the 7th floor. They will get you (continental) breakfast (incl. in room rate) at 07:00 if you tell them you have an early checkout.
BTW
I had the best swordfish steak I have ever eaten at a nondescript bar/restaurant just a few doors down the street from the hotel.
The hotel America is also just a few blocks from la Pedra (marketplace) if you want to do some shopping. Monte Cristo (Havanas) at unbelievably low price from a street vendor: she doesn't display them; you have to ask. As for how you're going to get them past Customs when you come back to Miami: that's a whole nuther 'project.'
I don't think FEVE serves a'Corunha. Their luxury summer San Sebastian to Santiago trip uses Buses for the final leg. I think FEVE terminates at o'Ferrol. I've just taken it for short stretches in Cantabria (Santander-Limpias, for example).
http://www.feve.es BTW
You're going to Santiago to pray at the sepulchre of the Apostol Iago and to Fatima which has been described to me as 'la pista de aterrizaje de los angeles.' Have you thought about Limpias (Cristo de Limpias) or San Sebastian de Garabandal, site of a reported Marian apparition in 1960-61? When I was in Potes in Apr, 2000, a group from Ireland at my Hostal was on a pilgrimage to Garabandal. It's in Cantabria, near Cabezon de la Sal.
I happened to be was on a pilgrimage to the Monastery of Santo Toribio, near Potes where the largest known fragment of the Cross of Christ (Vera Cruz) is kept - it was an Año Júbilar for Santo Toribio
[ 12-06-2001: Message edited by: Eddie ]