I have just returned from a holiday in Estepona mainly to play boule (petanque) with local ex pat teams & a local club in Gibraltar.
Although the main U3A boule group travelled out and back by air via Malaga, I travelled by train from London to Paris, Paris to Barcelona (overnight stay) Barcelona to Malaga, then bus to our hotel in Estepona.
This added two days to the holiday- I left a day earlier and got back a day later.
Previously I have done a similar trip to Estepona (2012) going via a Paris to Madrid sleeper- a service suspended a few weeks later. A trip in 2014 to Altea was via Barcelona (overnight stay) and Alicante, then on the local light rail (tram line) virtually to the door of the hotel.
I have been a member of the Iberian Railways Society for a number of years, but I am no expert on the system.
I have toyed with the idea of a small HO scale layout- firstly a “what if” layout situated in Gibraltar – connected to the Spanish system. In the end I decided this was a bit too politically charged!!
On the recent trip I renewed my interest in a layout- this time a “what if” layout situated in Estepona. The town has a very interesting and historic town centre with surroundings hugely expanded in all the recent economic boom times- mostly to quite a good standard with lots of well thought out landscaping.
Luckily Spain has a number of model railway manufacturers the leading one being Electrotren owned by Hornby.
So watch out for developments on the layout blogs