My daughter and I will be in Barcelona the last week in March and she would like to cross the border and spend a day in France/the Pyrenees. Would Andorra be a good place to check out for a day and perhaps spend the night? How do I find out about train routes (in the RENFE website I can only see routes all the way to Paris)? Any recommendations will be appreciated.
Posted by
Reeds Spring, Missouri, USA
120 posts
There are numerous buses between Barcelona and Andorra la Vella, the capital of Andorra. It sucks. I'd recommend traveling to and staying overnite in Beziers, France. It's in the foothills of the Pyrenees and I'm sure there are tours available that will take you into the mountains. The town itself is very interesting and historic, going back beyond the Romans. It's of the capital of the Languedoc wine region. To get there by train, you have to book a ticket on RENFE from Barcelona to Figures, Spain Valifant station and then another ticket on SCNF from there to Bezieres.
Posted by
Pensacola
9110 posts
Gary is generous in his description of Andorra la Vella. The reason there are so many buses from Barcelona is that everybody's going there to shop at the endless rows of K-Mart and Dollar Store type places. Avoid it like the plague. The only train station that I can picture in the whole country is way the heck and gone on the eastern border in NothingTown. I really like Perpignan which is closer than Beziers (but there is nothing wrong with it either). Interestingly for French Catalonia, Perpignan has a Basque enclave which now consists mostly of kids and grandkids of Spaniards who hauled tail during the revolution - - not terribly important, but it's a chance to have a different type of grub (look for restaurant names like Echeveria or Intxausti or some other combination of letters that make you chomp your tongue off if you try to pronounce them. I don't use public transportation, but would assume that you probably have to make a train change at Figueras as well.
Posted by
Dallas
1022 posts
I think you and your daughter would enjoy Collioure, France which is very picturesque port town. There are several local trains each day from Barcelona which stop there. You can use the German train site http://www.bahn.de to find schedules, but you won't be able to book through it. I had great difficulty with the Renfe website the time I tried it; I finally gave up and used Rail Europe even though the ticket prices were higher.
Posted by
Chicago
2876 posts
Beziers, Perpignan, and Collioure are all fine, although none of them are in the Pyrenees. If you want to see the Pyrenees, two great towns are Foix and Sentien. Foix in particular has an awesome hilltop chateau/castle and is a very charming town. Just don't ask me how to pronounce it.
Posted by
OP
Stoughton, WI
7 posts
Thank you all, lots of potentials. I want to check out the Pyrenees, she just wants to cross over to France, kids!
Posted by
Reeds Spring, Missouri, USA
120 posts
There is a train change at Figures, to the French TGV. About a 25 minute wait.