Seat 61, travel to Spain
Discussion
I have 7 days off from 26th July and was toying with the idea of flying anywhere in Spain and just have a wander whilst trying to use my DuoLingo Spanish learned over 4 months 
Not only are RyanAir as expensive as BA but with all this mess plus strikes, it has made me wary.
Tried to book a car ferry to Santander or Bilbao but it looks fully booked through the summer at eye watering prices.
Then I thought, what about the train.
Looked at the seat61 website where the chap talks of London to Paris FROM £59 and Paris to Barcelona FROM €35 each way.
I realise he did write FROM and he suggested RailEurope for the tickets.
Put my days of travel in and it came back.....
£850
I thought European train travel was supposed to be reasonable.
I tried late Sept for the same trip, still a hefty £650.
So how do you get the prices he quoted?
Getting quite tired of how we are trapped on this island.
Not only are RyanAir as expensive as BA but with all this mess plus strikes, it has made me wary.
Tried to book a car ferry to Santander or Bilbao but it looks fully booked through the summer at eye watering prices.
Then I thought, what about the train.
Looked at the seat61 website where the chap talks of London to Paris FROM £59 and Paris to Barcelona FROM €35 each way.
I realise he did write FROM and he suggested RailEurope for the tickets.
Put my days of travel in and it came back.....
£850
I thought European train travel was supposed to be reasonable.
I tried late Sept for the same trip, still a hefty £650.
So how do you get the prices he quoted?
Getting quite tired of how we are trapped on this island.
Bill said:
Quick look in Skyscanner searching on London to Spain reckons you can fly to Valencia for <£200.
Cheers, have been looking at Scanner. Just concerned about the queues, lack of staff and strikes.I want to relax.
I may just see how far I can walk from my house in a week, if the weather is still good
Bill said:
TBH at short notice and during the holidays I'm amazed there's any availability at all.
This. I looked at getting the Eurostar to Amsterdam in August is at the very cheapest £200... The day it turns sept I can get there and back for £80.The big problem will be accomodation. It's easy to find cheap flights, even with short notice but cheap accomodation, forget about it.
A mate showed me a pic of a Spanish town up in the hills north of the coast.
Medieval with an ancient bridge. Ronda.
Take a bus from Malaga airport to Malaga then another bus. 4 hours if you get the connection right.
Sounds a bit of an adventure and as the town sounds a bit of an arse to get to it would seem you can get a basic hotel on Booking for £180 for 6 nights when I looked yesterday.
It's just the airport then flying that could really make it miserable for once there, in a different culture and weather, I'm happy to take my time.
Medieval with an ancient bridge. Ronda.
Take a bus from Malaga airport to Malaga then another bus. 4 hours if you get the connection right.
Sounds a bit of an adventure and as the town sounds a bit of an arse to get to it would seem you can get a basic hotel on Booking for £180 for 6 nights when I looked yesterday.
It's just the airport then flying that could really make it miserable for once there, in a different culture and weather, I'm happy to take my time.
croyde said:
A mate showed me a pic of a Spanish town up in the hills north of the coast.
Medieval with an ancient bridge. Ronda.
Take a bus from Malaga airport to Malaga then another bus. 4 hours if you get the connection right.
Sounds a bit of an adventure and as the town sounds a bit of an arse to get to it would seem you can get a basic hotel on Booking for £180 for 6 nights when I looked yesterday.
It's just the airport then flying that could really make it miserable for once there, in a different culture and weather, I'm happy to take my time.
Ronda is stunning with phenomenal views but full of tourists, obviously.Medieval with an ancient bridge. Ronda.
Take a bus from Malaga airport to Malaga then another bus. 4 hours if you get the connection right.
Sounds a bit of an adventure and as the town sounds a bit of an arse to get to it would seem you can get a basic hotel on Booking for £180 for 6 nights when I looked yesterday.
It's just the airport then flying that could really make it miserable for once there, in a different culture and weather, I'm happy to take my time.
If it helps, Bristol to Fuerteventura from 27/7 to 3/8 is still under £200 return and car hire is much cheaper there than the mainland (Autoreisen) and apartments can be had via VRBO for £3-400 a week. That's the way I roll.... Gran Canaria apartments are twice that.
Airports like Malaga, Barcelona or Palma are huge and car hire is an expensive PITA. Airports like Reus, Murcia or Almeria are smaller and the areas tend to be cheaper and more Spanish.
I've travelled all over Europe by train, I'm lucky enough to get free train travel and I try to use it as much as I can.
Even though I get a big discount on Eurostar, I rarely use it as it still means I lose a whole day to travelling, I normally look for a cheap flight to somewhere in the general area I want to go to, then book a flight home a week or so later from somewhere a thousand miles away and 'join the dots' in-between.
I do sometimes use Seat61 for inspiration, one of the best things I found on there was a way to book the Bernina Express for 29 euros, which allowed me to take my Dad with me - we did a trip from Frankfurt to Lake Constance, then to Zurich, across Switzerland on the Bernina Express, on to Lake Como for a couple of nights, the total train fares for him cost 65 euros.
I notice you can fly from London to Perpignan on 26th July for £42. It's on the dreaded Ryanair so will end up more like £80 by the time you've added a bag. Barcelona is less than 90 minutes by train from there. I use Skyscanner a lot to pick out flight options.
From there you can get to Madrid in 90 minutes. Seville is 3 hours from Madrid, both are great places to spend a few nights. Or Madrid to Malaga has a fantastic high speed service, and that takes just under 3 hours. There's a new(ish) regional train route from there as far as Fuenigirola, which takes 45 minutes. From here you'd be able to get a bus to Mijas, or also to Ronda which has been recommend (I've been there but I was staying in the area and had a hire car).
Another option is Granada, as little as 70 minutes from Malaga.
Once you've found a place from where you can get back from cheaply, you can build something around that.
Ronda
Even though I get a big discount on Eurostar, I rarely use it as it still means I lose a whole day to travelling, I normally look for a cheap flight to somewhere in the general area I want to go to, then book a flight home a week or so later from somewhere a thousand miles away and 'join the dots' in-between.
I do sometimes use Seat61 for inspiration, one of the best things I found on there was a way to book the Bernina Express for 29 euros, which allowed me to take my Dad with me - we did a trip from Frankfurt to Lake Constance, then to Zurich, across Switzerland on the Bernina Express, on to Lake Como for a couple of nights, the total train fares for him cost 65 euros.
I notice you can fly from London to Perpignan on 26th July for £42. It's on the dreaded Ryanair so will end up more like £80 by the time you've added a bag. Barcelona is less than 90 minutes by train from there. I use Skyscanner a lot to pick out flight options.
From there you can get to Madrid in 90 minutes. Seville is 3 hours from Madrid, both are great places to spend a few nights. Or Madrid to Malaga has a fantastic high speed service, and that takes just under 3 hours. There's a new(ish) regional train route from there as far as Fuenigirola, which takes 45 minutes. From here you'd be able to get a bus to Mijas, or also to Ronda which has been recommend (I've been there but I was staying in the area and had a hire car).
Another option is Granada, as little as 70 minutes from Malaga.
Once you've found a place from where you can get back from cheaply, you can build something around that.
Ronda
Edited by Gareth1974 on Saturday 16th July 12:54
In spite of what a few people have said on here, I've always found the best bargains to be had are flights to tourist hotspots, then find somewhere interesting to go once you are there. I regularly fly to Barcelona then hire a car and head to somewhere more interesting, been to Colioure just over into France a few times by this method, or up into the Pyrenees.
I've booked flights to Malaga this year (September as Spain is looking too hot for me at the moment), hired a car and will be heading into the hills north of Seville, taking in a few nice places en route.
I've booked flights to Malaga this year (September as Spain is looking too hot for me at the moment), hired a car and will be heading into the hills north of Seville, taking in a few nice places en route.
Our 2020 holiday in the South of France, which we finally managed this year, should have begun with the Eurostar from Ashford to Marseille.
The Marseille service has been discontinued (we lacked confidence to use TGV) and Ashford and Ebbsfleet are still shut.
Hence the queue of 3000 people a mate told me about at St Pancras. It'll be good when the full service is reinstated.
The Marseille service has been discontinued (we lacked confidence to use TGV) and Ashford and Ebbsfleet are still shut.
Hence the queue of 3000 people a mate told me about at St Pancras. It'll be good when the full service is reinstated.
croyde said:
I may just see how far I can walk from my house in a week, if the weather is still good
Not joking - when I was bored to tears amidst the Covid nonsense in mid-2020, it was impossible to travel abroad and I had a load of annual leave to burn, I got on my bike here in SE London and decided to see how far I could cycle in a week, camping by the roadside.The Isles of Scilly were unspeakably gorgeous (and it took me 5 days to get there). I plonked the bike on the return train from Penzance to Paddington for 18 quid.
By far the most expensive part of the trip was the Scillonian II ferry from Penzance to Hugh Town.
lobster940 said:
croyde said:
I may just see how far I can walk from my house in a week, if the weather is still good
Not joking - when I was bored to tears amidst the Covid nonsense in mid-2020, it was impossible to travel abroad and I had a load of annual leave to burn, I got on my bike here in SE London and decided to see how far I could cycle in a week, camping by the roadside.The Isles of Scilly were unspeakably gorgeous (and it took me 5 days to get there). I plonked the bike on the return train from Penzance to Paddington for 18 quid.
By far the most expensive part of the trip was the Scillonian II ferry from Penzance to Hugh Town.
Nice going.
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