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Travel w/in Europe

Posted by (Madison, WI, USA) on

My husband and I are going to Europe in Feb. 08. We'll be starting in Florence for a week then travelling to Barcelona for about 4-5 days. We were initially going to go from Florence to Southern France to Barcelona, but I can't seem to find a connecting train to Barcelona from Nice (or other southern France city).

I was now looking to see if we should just go to Rome for a few days and then fly to Barcelona, but I'm not sure about this. I'm not a huge fan of flying, but the prices are much cheaper than taking a train. Any thoughts or recommendations? I used skyscanner.net and had results from clickair. Is this comparable to Ryan Air?

Also, has anyone used the Barcelona Card that is sold through RailEurope.com?

Thanks so much!
Emily

Posted by
2 posts

We're actually flying into Florence and out of Barcelona, so that's why I'm trying to get to Barcelona. I have been to Italy (Venice, Florence, Rome) before, so that is why we'd like to also go to Spain (never been before).

The web site you sent was helpful and I think I need to quite a bit more research....I just don't know how we should do this! Any additional thoughts on the flights (if they are very sketchy) would be appreciated. Thanks!

Emily

Posted by
19274 posts

In my opinion, unless you already have flight reservations, you should plan to stay in Italy. There is too much to see there to waste the time and money going to Spain for a few days. Save Spain for your next trip.

Two things to consider about flying. There are costs associated with getting to and from airports. (The Leonardo express charges €9,50 from Rome Termini to FCO.) Consider those when comparing prices. You can often find a night train for little more than the cost of a hotel room.

Also, for a flight time of 1-2 hours, your travel time including to/from airports, checkin time, security lines, boarding and deplaning, finding ground transportation, can easily be 6 hours or more and certainly more stressful than the train.

Posted by
19274 posts

I had no trouble finding connecting trains from Nice to Barcelona using the German Rail website, http://reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/query.exe/en. However, for costs you will probably have to use the French Rail website and add Trenitalia and and Spanish Rail. Don't use RailEurope prices for comparison, because they are inflated.

Posted by
3226 posts

Hi Emily,

If you access this website http://www.bahn.de/p/view/index.shtml that is recommended in Rick Steve's books you'll see that you can take an overnight train from Torino, IT to Barcelona departing on Feb. 15th at 21:18 and arriving at 09:01 on Feb. 16th. I take overnight trains frequently in Europe and highly recommend it.
MaryPat

Posted by
317 posts

Hi Emily,

An option to get from Florence to Barcelona could be taking a night ferry. I did not happen to bookmark where I was at, but I was reading a Barcelona tourist information site a few weeks ago with information about them.

I do remember one of the companies' names that was listed and here is its web site: http://www.grimaldi-ferries.com/

Cheers.

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