THE.CAT hopes to be able to help some international passengers who want to reach home and who are in Barcelona. THE.CAT is a just a personal website made in Barcelona.
The obvious option would be by plane but this may not be an option due to the plane restrictions caused by the ashes of this pretty Icelandic volcano. You can go to www.aena.es to know what is going on with your plane in any of the Spanish airports.
These last weeks there has been a strike in the French railway service. You can check what is going on at www.sncf.com .
Anyway, there are few Spanish trains that cross the border. Some go to Montpellier, to Milano in Italy, to Zürich in Switzerland or to Paris. These trains are very full or completely full for these days. Milano, Zurich or Paris trenhotel more information at www.elipsos.com Besides, sometimes these trains cannot cross the border because of the French strike so the passengers are transfered to buses. BE AWARE, that if finally you can catch an ELIPSO TRENHOTEL (or a TALGO to MONTPELLIER) you must know if the train departs from BARCELONA SANTS or BARCELONA ESTACIÓ DE FRANÇA. As far as I know all depart from ESTACIÓ DE FRANÇA except the TALGO that goes to Montpellier at the afternoon and that comes from the south of Spain. As I have said THE STRIKE IN FRANCE may cause change in this trains!!!!!! I have heard that sometimes some trains have been cancelled and other times the passengers have had to continue with buses, maybe from FIGUERES.
So another option is to take a regional train to the border – it can be full of people but they go without reservation so you always can have a ticket. They leave from Barcelona each hour or two. Some of them go to CERBERE – CERBERE is the first village in the French State, and some go to PORTBOU. PORTBOU is a Catalan town too but on the south part of border, so inside the Spanish state. When there is strike in France the trains just go to PORTBOU.
If this is the unfortunate case then you will have to go from PORTBOU to CERBERE with other means. I imagine that with a TAXI. It is about a 5 km ride through the mountain that separates both coastal villages.
BARCELONA-SANTS or BARCELONA-PASSEIG DE GRÀCIA are good places to take the train. Nevertheless the big big station is BARCELONA SANTS. There you have a place to leave the lugagge, you have offices to rent a car, you have a lot of taxis, you have a bus station next to it. And a McDonalds and other restaurants. The McDonald’s has WIFI. Nearby, at about 5 minutes, in the street you have some small INTERNET CAFÉS. I also have heard that last night the station remained exceptionally open for stranded passengers.
Once you are in CERBERE you are in France. Even if there is a strike I saw that there were some services so you may find some way of going north. PERPIGNAN would be the first big city to reach.
I have heard that some people united themselves and just rent buses to go to their destinations. In my personal opinion then it is best to remain in a big city to do that.
Another option to go to France is taking a bus in Barcelona. EUROLINES has buses, quite full too. In Barcelona there are two bus stations so you must check which one you need. ESTACIÓ SUD is next to RAILWAY ESTACIÓ BARCELONA SANTS, the main railway station in Barcelona. Then you have ESTACIÓ DEL NORD with much more buses in general.
Some people go with train to FIGUERES and in FIGUERES they take a bus or a taxi or somebody comes to pick them. After all FIGUERES is next to the highway that passes through PERPIGNAN too.
I hope this post can be helpful.
PERPIGNAN and FIGUERES is a 60 km drive that should take about 45 minuts just through the toll highways A9 and AP-7.
Let me say that I offered myself for a limited time as a free translator ENGLISH SPANISH for stranded passengers.
LINKS:
www.aena.es (SPANISH AIRPORTS WEBSITE. YOU CAN CHOOSE THE AIRPORT AND THE LANGUAGE. FOR EXEMPLE, FOR BCN AIRPORT AND IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE: http://www.aena.es/csee/Satellite?SiteName=BCN&c=Page&cid=1045569607459&pagename=subHome OR SPANISH: http://www.aena.es/csee/Satellite?SiteName=BCN&c=Page&cid=1045569607459&pagename=subHome )
www.sncf.com (FRENCH RAILWAY COMPANY)
www.renfe.com (SPANISH RAILWAY COMPANY)
www.barcelonanord.com (ESTACIO DEL NORD IS A MAIN BUS STATION IN BARCELONA. BUT REMEMBER THAT NEXT TO BARCELONA SANTS RAILWAY STATION YOU ALSO HAVE A BUS STATION WITH BUSES TO EUROPE!)
www.linebus.com (BUSES TO EUROPE)
www.eurolines.es (BUSES TO EUROPE. NEXT TO BARCELONA SANTS RAILWAY STATION THEY HAVE OFFICES AT THE BUS STATION)
www.bcn.cat (IT IS THE WEBSITE OF BARCELONA CITY COUNCIL. IF YOU HAVE RUN OUT OF MONEY REMEMBER THERE ARE PLACES IN BARCELONA WHERE IT IS POSSIBLE TO EAT FOR FREE FOR THOSE IN NEED)
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I am at www.eurolines.es. I have read that the buses are very full or totally full but I also have heard that there are more buses now so who knows maybe one can take one of these buses.
I put BARCELONA SANTS (it refers to the bus station next to the big building of the railway station) or BARCELONA NORTE (it refers to ESTACIÓ DEL NORD) and you can go
GERMANY, BELGIUM, TCHEC REPUBLIC,FRANCE, HOLAND/NEDERLANDS, ITALY,LUXEMBOURG, MOROCCO, POLAND,PORTUGAL, ROMANIA, SWITZERLAND and MOLDOVIA.
This means cities, like, for example, BREMEN,BERLIN, DUSSELDORF, FREIBURG,FRANKFURT, HEIDELBERG, HAMBURG,HANNOVER, KOLN,MUNCHEN,STUTTGART,AMBERS, BRUSSELS, GANT, LIEJA,PRAGUE, PLZEN,AVIGNON, BORDEAUX, BEZIERS,CARCASSONE, DIJON, GRENOBLE, LILLE,LYON, MONTPELLIER, MARSEILLE, NICE,NARBONNE, NANTES, PERPIGNAN,TOULOUSE, PARIS, REIMS,AMSTERDAM, EINDHOVEN, ROTTERDAM,UTRECHT,BOLOGNIA, FIRENZA, MILANO, NAPOLI,ROME, VENEZIA,KRAKOW, WARSAW,BUCAREST,ZURICH, BASEL, GENEVE, LAUSANNE,CHISINAU.
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Wow! It is about two hours that I have written this post and I am already receiving visits related to this post. Here you can see the searches that bring visitors to this website!:
APRIL 20TH 2010 good morning! I just have read that now the things are easier. Some flight have left Amsterdam towards New York.
I wanted to comment also about another place in the border with FRANCE. It is called TOUR DE CAROL. The trains from Barcelona, when there is not strike, they also go to this city in France. If there is a strike in FRANCE, the trains only go to PUIGCERDÀ because they do not cross the border. To go to TOUR DE CAROL or PUIFCERDÀ the train leaves from BARCELONA SANT ANDREU ARENAL so this is an inconvenience so I think it is much better to go to PORTBOU. Anyway, I write about TOUR DE CAROL because there may be somebody interested in going there!
I am also visiting the links I put before and I have realised that some information is difficult to get in English so I will try to put here the timetables I find, etc. I may even open a twitter account. For the people wanting to go to the UK I imagine they know about ships from the army going to SANTANDER. I have to know more about this. Maybe I should also put here a list of embassies.
HERE IS THE LIST OF TIMETABLES I HAVE FOUND FOR APRIL 20TH 2010. PLEASE BE AWARE THAT THERE CAN BE MISTAKES SO PLEASE VISIT OFFICIAL SITES:
BARCELONA SANTS – PORTBOU 0916-1155 (a regional train. lots of stops)
CERBERE – PERPIGNAN 1228 (as you have to take a taxi from Portbou to Cerbere I wonder if this can be done only in 33 minutes!, the time between 1155 and 1228. Maybe one has to wait for the other train …)
BARCELONA SANTS – PORTBOU 1016-1230 ( a md train. few stops)
CERBERE – NARBONNE 1409
BARCELONA SANTS – PORTBOU 1116-1355 (regional train. lots of stops)
CERBERE – PERPIGNAN 1503
CERBERE – PERPIGNAN 1544
BARCELONA SANTS – PORTBOU 1316-1555 (regional train. lots of stops)
CERBERE – PERPIGNAN 1653
CERBERE – PERPIGNAN 1722
BARCELONA SANTS – PORTBOU 1516-1755 (regional train. los of stops)
CERBERE - NARBONNE 1825
The next are trains to Portbou. From Cèrbere I have not seen any but this may be because where I look only gives me some trains. I do not konw. I am just loking at a widget called PROCHAINS DEPARTS that I downloaded from http://www.ter-sncf.com/Regions/languedoc_roussillon/Fr/Se_deplacer_en_TER/Avant_mon_voyage/Widget_prochains_departs/Default.aspx
Once you are in that page choose the option TELECHARGER THE OBJECT. THEN CHOOSE SAVE! I choose to save it in my desktop and know I can have the timetable of FRENCH TRAINS!
BARCELONA SANTS – PORTBOU 1716-1955 (regional train. lots of stops)
BARCELONA SANTS – PORTBOU 1746-2000 (md train. few stops)
BARCELONA SANTS – PORTBOU 1916-2202 (regional train. few stops)
I just have looked at LATOUR-DE-CAROL. I see that there are some buses going to TOULOUSE-MATABIAU departing at 0955 and at 1320. I have no idea if it is easy to go from Puigcerdà to La Tour de Querol.
Looking at the departures from PERPIGNAN I see two TGV to PARIS – GARE DE LYON. I just wonder if it has seats available these days. The times I see are 1135 and 1535. Some of the stops are NARBONNE, BEZIERS and MONTPELLIER. I also see TER trains going to AVIGNON, TOULOUSE, NARBONNE, …
At 1238 I see at www.aena.es that some flights are going to HAMBURG and FRANKFURT.
LAST UPDATE: 1226 APRIL 20TH 2010
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