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Renfe My Pass and Barcelona Day Trip

Hi,

We've just booked a Spanish holiday for my partner and I (with our little one <1 years old) for Feb next year and have two questions:

  • We booked the Renfe pass and can't seem to find the train from Seville to Granada on the 8th of Feb, it's available through the normal booking portal (all our other bookings worked)
    • We have an extra night in Barcelona due to flight changes, on top of the 4 nights we had previously planned. Does anyone have a recommendation for a night away that's weather-appropriate? We are happy to explore a new city and take in some of the food and sights

Thanks!

Posted by
27620 posts

I don't know anything about that Renfe pass, but I recall earlier complaints about difficulties using a Spanish rail pass (not necessarily that one). I hope someone else can help.

It would be useful to know your full itinerary before suggesting a way to use the extra day. In isolation, I'd suggest Girona. It's an historic city with a partially-walled medieval district and a number of interesting sights (two historic churches, an art museum, a Jewish-history museum). You can spend hours just walking around the historic center. There are definitely other options from Barcelona, but to me Girona is #1. It appears, however, that the nighttime temperature in Girona could be quite a lot chillier than the average in Barcelona. Do you have adequate time planned for Seville, Cordoba and Granada? I'd focus my time there on a February trip, because I love warm weather in the winter (though Granada's at altitude and likely won't be as warm as the other two cities.)

If you'll be approaching Barcelona by train from Madrid, you could instead stop for one night mid-way in Zaragoza. Madrid and Zaragoza are likely to be considerably chillier than Barcelona. Seville and Granada are nearly guaranteed to be the warmest of all.

There's tons to see and do in Barcelona; there's nothing wrong with having 5 nights there.

Don't forget there are quite a few sights in Barcelona for which you'll want to have tickets in hand (or on your phone) before walking up; ticket lines can be long and individual time slots, at least, can sell out in advance. The problem sights are La Sagrada Familia, Parc Guell, Casa Mila/La Pedrera, Casa Batllo, Picasso Museum and Palau de la Musica Catalana. The issue at the latter is that the English-language tours can sell out. Yes, having so many sights essentially requiring pre-purchased, timed tickets that tie you down does limit your sightseeing flexibility. That's one reason it can be stressful not to have much time in Barcelona.

Posted by
2 posts

Thank you, really appreciate the message! Let me share a bit more detail, would love to hear what you think based on what we have currently:

  • Barcelona for 4 nights/4 days, we now arrive a day earlier so have another full day and night before our accommodation starts
  • Valencia for 3 nights/2 days
  • Seville for 4 nights/4 days
  • Granada 3 nights/3 days (inc. Alhambra)
  • Madrid 4 nights/4 days

We were thinking of doing the day trip on the first day from the airport, we already have all the accommodation booked and trains (except for the Seville to Granada) so trying to avoid changing everything but obviously if there is somewhere that we have missed we open to rethinking things.