I am traveling to Europe in October and I'm a bit confused about distances. I am flying in to Barcelona, Spain and from there want to take a train to Cinque Terre, then another train to Paris and then another train to Madrid. I am flying back to the states from Madrid.
Is this feasible in terms of time and transportation cost?
Thanks for your help.
Fanny
I think you need to look at a map and some train schedules.
Is it feasible - probably yes, although not necessarily by train. Is 14 days long enough to ´do´ 2 cities in 2 different countries (Barcelona and Paris), but needing to go to another city (Madrid) to depart as well as another area in a 3rd country (Cinque Terre). Well only you can decide that but I wouldn´t want to do it.
I am not at all sure there are trains between all the places you mention but others may know. This is a site on Cinque Terre.
Training this all would simply cut too much into your time. It's about 600 miles from from Barcelona to Cinque Terre, and train connections are not very good, the journey taking at least 24 hours, with several changes. It's about the same distance from La Spezia to Paris, with trains about 14-15 hours. From Paris to Madrid, it's about 800 miles, with trains running about 14 hours. And they will likely be very expensive. Far better to fly. From Barcelona, discount airlines fly into Pisa, Florence, Milan, and Bologna. From those airports, (plus Genoa) you can fly to Paris. And there are discount airlines flying Paris-Madrid. If you want to check the rail connections and times, use the German national rail website, the best for that purpose. To see discount airlines, click here.
In a word, no.
First, start being honest with yourself. You ask "Is it feasible to do Barcelona, Cinque Terre and Paris in 14 days?" Then you go on to say that your flight departs from Madrid, a fact you omit from your question.
Next, start being honest about how many "days" you have, Do you really have 14 days? I'm guessing that you are counting one or both of your arrival/departure days. You can not really count the day you arrive in Europe since you will be quite zonked-out from being awake most of the night on your overnight flight from the US. You will also most likely be disoriented and will need that first day to get used to the strangeness of being overseas. In fact, most people are only about 75% "there" on the day AFTER they arrive, but let's ignore that for the moment.
Every day you move from one place to another, you will pretty much lose that whole day. If you're lucky, and everything works out nicely, you may have a few hours to use at the beginning or end of your day.Too many days wasted getting places.
With less than 14 days, pick fewer places. You have to include Barcelona and Madrid (both of which are worth at least a few days each). Personally, I'd actually skip Paris and Cinque Terre entirely on this trip, as they don't make any sense. Your trip is to Spain, not Italy to France. There's plenty of great stuff to see and do in Spain, and October is a great time to be there. Here's what I would do:
Arrive Barcelona, spend the next 2-3 days there. Take the fast train or fly to Madrid, then spend the next 2-3 days in Madrid. Using Madrid as your base, spend the remainder of your days doing some of the world-class cities and attractions around Madrid (Toledo, Granada, Segovia, etc.) - just don't try to do too many.
Hope that helps, have a great trip.
It's easy to fly between Barcelona and Paris. I would leave the CT for another trip. Spend a few days in Madrid, Barcelona, and Paris. If you still want to visit CT this visit, you can fly Barcelona to Pisa or Paris to Pisa. From Pisa, the CT is an hour or two by train. Possible: yes. Reasonable: I don't think so.
Thank you very much for your assistance! I will stick to Spain and enjoy. :)
