Girona and Figueres from Barcelona

BlaBlaCar is sort of like hitchhiking: You are connecting with someone who plans to drive to the place you want to go. I would not use it in a case like yours.

I don't know where are finding the train schedules. To see all the departures, you need to look at renfe or the Deutsche Bahn. The latter website is easier to use, but you can't use it to buy tickets on trains in Catalunya. I don't know when you are traveling, but I see 38-minute trips to Girona departing at 9:25 and 9:45 AM tomorrow. Prices of those trains can be rather high for last-minute purchases. The next departures are slower, cheaper trains at 10:16 (77 minutes) and 11:16 (91 minutes).

The trip from Girona to Figueres takes about 15 minutes on the costly fast train but takes you to the Figueres Vilafant station, which I believe is farther from the Dali Theatre and Museum. The slower/cheaper trains go to a more central location and take 30 to 40 minutes. Between those two options there are roughly two trains per hour.

I have not been to the Dali site, but friends raved about it, and I gather that it is a multiple-hour visit in addition to the travel time required.

I loved Girona and spent more than a day seeing it. It has a wall you can walk on, two cathedrals with English-language audio guides, a very good mid-sized museum and and a large, atmospheric medieval district surrounding those other sights. One can spend many hours just wandering around, window-shopping and cafe-sitting. I would not want to cram the Dali Theatre and Museum and Girona into one day, but you could do it if the only thing you do in Girona is wander around the historic district, skipping the museum and cathedrals. It might mean grabbing lunch on the go.

"the trains look fairly limited as well."

???.... there are +50 trains every day to Girona, being some 25 of them fast trains (=less than 40' to Girona). Also, there are some 20+ fast trains from Barcelona to Figueres (= 1h) and 30 commuter trains between Figueres and Girona (=1h as well)

Girona is worth a couple of full days at minimum.

If departing from Barcelona, I'm afraid these two destinations on the same day require an early rising, otherwise, you won't get to see much.

What a lot of people do is to take the fast train to Figueres, visit the Dali Museum and maybe the centre of the town -albeit there are also other sites worth visiting-, then go to Girona for lunch and spend the rest of the day until the last fast train to Barcelona, around 9ish, or the last commuter train, around 10ish.

Schedules
Fast trains: www.renfe.com - Commuter trains: www.rodalies.tk (these take longer, but you don't need to prebook)
To check out
Figueres: http://en.visitfigueres.cat/ - Girona: http://www.girona.cat/turisme/eng/activitats.php (video)

Even with your eyes half closed, get up early for a train to Figueres. It's about an hour's ride. Note that the high-speed train and slow train stop at separate stations; it's worth checking which is closer to the centre of the town. I would consider buying a ticket for Dali in advance since there can be line-ups. Figure a half-day in Figueres and then the balance of the day walking around Girona, a charming city. Girona is proud of its restaurants but the evening meal starts late so the train back to Barcelona would have to be even later.

Thank you, this is super helpful. I didn't think to look on DB for Spain so I will. Another odd thing is that when I go on the website for the Dali Museum and look for tickets in the third week of October they only offer morning tickets with a 20 minute entry window. Does nobody enter in the early afternoon and if so, how does one get tickets? Wondering how long the line will be in the third week of October and if advance tickets are a must.

Irene, in spring 2016, I visited Figueres and Girona in one day, pretty much as Enric outlined. There was a promo rate on a fast train from Sants Station to Figueres at about 8,25 am, something like 10 euros. The station in Figueres was a ways out of town, but a bus met the train and took you into town, a couple of blocks from the Dali Museum, for 1 euro plus change. I bought an early admission ticket to the Museum online before I left the US. I spent 2-3 hours in the Museum, much of it excellent, although some parts not, then walked to the in-town station for the slower but still short train to Girona, at about noon. In Girona, the station is a really long walk from the old town; I walked both ways but wish I hadn't, a taxi or bus at least one way would have been much better. The old town has a lot to see and experience, old Roman walls, narrow ancient streets, churches, an interesting Jewish museum, shops and restaurants, etc. I'm sure there is more. I ran out of steam early evening and caught a train back to Sants in BCN, arriving maybe 9 pm. A fine day, but I did way too much walking in Girona.

Thanks for the info and especially about the timing and all the walking, Larry. Do you think 2-3 hours is enough time to see the museum?

Yes, for me that was enough time. Some people have a long attention span for art museums, but not me. This is Dali, so there are some very unusual works of art, not just paintings. When I was there, they had an exhibit of paintings or drawings by another artist, which I found uninteresting. There is a lovely exhibit of jewelry too, in a separate building or section.

It's time to step out of your comfort zone for just one day and get up early. I literally did this same trip a few days ago. I took the 7:20 am train out of Sants (I think I paid €16 ahead of time) to Figueres Vilafant. I walked over to the museum, which took about 20 mins. I had about 25 mins to kill so I had some pastries at a cafe down the street. Got to museum at 9 (I had a prepaid ticket) and I spent less than two hours inside. I'm not a huge art afficionado so I don't spend hours analyzing each piece. I then walked over to the other train station and got a €4.20 ticket to Girona. I believe I left Figueres around 11 am. I spent about 4 hours in Girona. I only toured the cathedral and Arab baths. Not much into local small museums so that made my visit quick. I was back in Barcelona before 5 pm, but the last fast train out of Girona was at 6:30 or 7 pm if you want to stay longer.