Paris to Seville, via Barcelona, or somewhere else?

[nitten_travell]

Hi all,

Has anyone any experience, good or bad, to share about travelling from Paris to Seville via Barcelona in a day.

It makes for a long day

dep Paris 0742 arr Barcelona 1429
dep Barclona 1517 arr Seville 2124

Staying overnight in Barcelona is not feasible (hotel prices are £££££££££££££).

Staying overnight in Avignon or Nimes and travelling via Madrid is an option.

Has anyone done this journey, or via somewhere else, and could share what they thought? We will be using Interrail so cost is largely irrelevant.

 

[Sir Felix Pole]

Zaragoza is pleasant enough for an overnight stay with reasonable hotel rates - catch a local train from the AVE station (Delicias) to the city-centre (Goya). Plenty of options the following day for trains to Madrid and on to Sevilla.

The other route would be via Hendaye / Irun and Madrid, staying perhaps in San Sebastián. Due to engineering work currently, you need to take the Euskotren between Hendaye and San Sebastián.

 

[nitten_travell]

Thank you.

I should have said we plan loop home via San Sebastián, stay there for three nights, then home via Hendaye. This is mid-May so presumably the Euskotren is running OK then?

 

[peterblue]

Hi all,

Has anyone any experience, good or bad, to share about travelling from Paris to Seville via Barcelona in a day.

It makes for a long day

dep Paris 0742 arr Barcelona 1429
dep Barclona 1517 arr Seville 2124

Staying overnight in Barcelona is not feasible (hotel prices are £££££££££££££).

Staying overnight in Avignon or Nimes and travelling via Madrid is an option.

Has anyone done this journey, or via somewhere else, and could share what they thought? We will be using Interrail so cost is largely irrelevant.

Going all the way to Seville seems strange to me unless you very particularly need to be there. It would add on a lot of travel time, and if you are after a cheaper hotel there will be other places closer by.

I second Sir Felix's suggestion of Zaragoza. Even Madrid isn't too bad for hotels as it's not that touristy despite being a capital city.

 

[nwales58]

Zaragoza or Lleida, if morning free could go up to Pobla de Segur and back, the gorge is worth seeing

Seville could be bl**dy hot already in May

 

[30907]

Is a connection of less than an hour valid in RENFE-land? I thought not.

 

[Sir Felix Pole]

Thank you.

I should have said we plan loop home via San Sebastián, stay there for three nights, then home via Hendaye. This is mid-May so presumably the Euskotren is running OK then?

Euskotren is running normally, but there are no cross-frontier services on the Standard / Iberian gauge main line at present.

Another option to consider is taking the sleeper to Latour de Carol, saving a Barcelona hotel bill and giving you more time in Paris. It only runs at weekends currently, however, (daily from June), and 3hrs in the connecting suburban EMU to Barcelona can be a bit of a drag!

 

[rvdborgt]

Is a connection of less than an hour valid in RENFE-land? I thought not.

If included in the Renfe "planner", then it is. Some of their connections are shorter than that.

 

[WolvertonWorks]

In 2011 we took the much missed trenhotel overnight Paris to Madrid to Cordoba. The trenhotel was late arriving into Madrid and there followed a very fast taxi ride to the station for Cordoba, where we stayed for a few nights.

We then went on to Seville and hence to Cadiz and then back to Madrid, all using the trains.

If I were you I'd definitely look at the via Madrid option.

End of May this year we are doing Paris - Bordeaux (overnight) - Hendaye and on to Bilbao and then more stops along the coast, then inland to Leon.

On the way back from Leon we are overnighting in Vittoria-Gastiez - did consider Zaragoza but chose V-G as looked an interesting place to have a look around - then on to a couple of nights in Barcelona to check out progress on the Sagrada Familia then train to Lyons for another overnight. This is so we can come home Lyons - Lille - London in one day avoiding changing in Paris.


Looking forward to your trip report to glean any useful info.

 

[Austriantrain]

Even Madrid isn't too bad for hotels as it's not that touristy despite being a capital city.

And well worth a visit, IMO much more than overhyped Barcelona.

 

[nitten_travell]

Thanks for all your replies. I should give a bit of context. We have two 5 day Interrail passes and a long-held desire to visit Seville. The current plan is...

Monday: Edinburgh to Paris. 3 night stay

Thursday: Paris to Seville, via Barcelona. 5 night stay. This will be at the end of Fiesta de Abril, so much to take part in

Tuesday: Seville to San Sebastian, via Madrid. 3 night stay

Friday: San Sebastian to Edinburgh via Hendaye and Paris, it is actually possible in a day!

Four travel days means we have a day free.


The first Paris stay co-incides with Mrs Nitten's birthday and was a request to stay for a few nights. However, when she found out the length of the Paris-Seville day, and knowing that we have an extra, unused travel day I was tasked with finding a suitable overnight stop and reducing Paris to 2 nights. If that seems harsh, we spent a week there last year so it's just a "Paris on my birthday would be nice" stay; we've also spent a week in Barcelona and almost three in Madrid in the last few years.

Sleeper to Latour de Carol is not an option. We have friends who took it last year en route to Mallorca, their description of it (actually of the journey from there to Barcelona) did not fill Mrs Nitten with joy and indeed when you look at the times there's no great advantage vs the TGV from Paris.

So, I'm looking for potential one night stopovers on the way from Paris to Seville which are not Barcelona or Madrid. I thought of Nimes, but Zaragoza is a place I will now investigate.

 

[anothertyke]

Montpellier might be worth looking at too.

 

[AdamWW]

Another option to consider is taking the sleeper to Latour de Carol, saving a Barcelona hotel bill and giving you more time in Paris. It only runs at weekends currently, however, (daily from June), and 3hrs in the connecting suburban EMU to Barcelona can be a bit of a drag!

Some of that 3 hours is really rather scenic, though!