Fascinating, thanks for sharing! After spending a semester there during the Catalonia vote for independence (the one with riot police forcibly storming ballot locations on TV) and reading a bit of history, it seems to me that Spain has to be one of the most fractured developed states in the world.

Well, quasi-fractured I suppose: all the regionalism has lead to an also-strong federalist countermovemnt! See if you notice anything weird about the map of Spain's high-speed rail routes, for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_Spain#/medi...

(BTW, Spain has the second best HSR network in the world, just after China. Congrats, Spain!)

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gonzalohm 2 days ago | parent [-]

What's weird about the high speed rail network? Is it that all lines go through Madrid? Some people like to bring that up when talking about how Madrid gets everything. But the alternative to that is building the line through the middle of nowhere. If you are going North-South or East-West, it makes economical sense to stop in Madrid

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netol 2 days ago | parent [-]

The fact that Valencia and Barcelona are still not connected, for example

	▲	gonzalohm 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		I think that's already in the works. The normal train is around 3 hours (1 hour less than driving). So it's understandable that it wasn't a top priority