Barcelona to Arles

A lot of options won't show up on the Rail Europe site because most of the purely domestic Spanish trains from Barcelona to the French border are treated as local trains (though still quite fast) and can't be booked online.

Terry, we purchase our Barcelona to Avignon tickets in the Barcelona Sants trains station (future tickets windows. Take a number from the little machine). Neither the French or Spanish will sell you an advance ticket for this run online. I just put in Barcelona and Figueres on the www.tgv-europe.com page and they know the station but the next screen will tell you that the station cannot be found. Here's our experience. At Barcelona Sants, we could not put any part of the French train segments on our credit card. They wouldn't do it. I could put the Spain segments on the credit card but I just paid cash for the entire trip (about 120Euro for two as I recall). You depart Barcelona just after 7:00am and you change to the French train at Figueres-Villifant. The French TGV was empty, waiting for us and on the opposite side of the same platform. At Nimes, you change trains again to a Regionale. The transfer stops could be different but the trip will be about the same. Overall, it was a nice trip.

Larry, how did you find out about that train? I am looking for one earlier than the 12:50 one, but maybe later than the 7 a.m. one. So If I get the the station a little before 7, I can buy the ticket and board? And the same with the French train? Just don't want to be at the train station and find out all the should ovs and could ovs....thanks for the help.

I had the same experience that Larry did. I was glad he told me about the need to pay cash for the French portion ahead of time.

Terry, I actually found the entire runs shown on the German www.bahn.de website so I knew which trains I wanted before going to the train station. At the train station, they have two sets of windows. One set seems to be for today's trains. The other set seems to be for future trains. The lines can be long and you do have to take a number. Trying to get there early to buy a ticket might be risky. But, I have a link below what I see on the German website. If you miss the train you want, you can buy a ticket for the next one. I've opened up one the 9:16 run so that you can see the train change locations and the train transfer times. It's different from our journey but that's OK. http://gyazo.com/bfe4e186a95c92310328bc6549134c6f

Larry, thank you.....I knew there had to be a site that could give me the information. I apppreciate it and all the help I get from RS people.