Santiago de Compostela to Munich by Train

nltrainer
Traveller
1404 comments

BY bus-thats quite easy-simply use any of the many eur-wide bus booking sites-perhaps even FLIX can bring you all the way, but at least from a major other spanish town.
Train-well uh, thats rather more difficult and also quite costly. The usual responders-after a while, on this site, peter and flo, will have the answer.
(most people who mainly look at time and expense opt to fly after having seen the necessary arrangements)

Passepartout126
Traveller
12 comments

Hello Jacques,

Your journey is, well, not easy. But it's not impossible either.

Roughly you will go from Santiago de Compostela to Barcelona via Madrid. There you have two options: the daily TGV to Paris or the Rodalies to Latour de Carol / La Tor de Carol where you can take the night train to Paris. From Paris there are TGVs and ICEs in direction Munich.

It's not easy to find out since for Santiago to Madrid you can find timetables only on the Renfe website and for the Rodalies local trains only on http://rodalies.gencat.cat/es/inici/

If you leave early you could just take one day to get to Latour de Carol, catch the 9pm night train an continue the next day to Munich, getting you there in 36 hours.
Staying over in Barcelona, you catch the morning TGV or AVE to Paris and be in Munich just before midnight.

The scenic route via Latour de Carol in the Pyrenées has been well documented by the man in seat 61: https://www.seat61.com/trains-and-routes/paris-to-barcelona-by-sleeper-train.htm

Good luck!

Passepartout126
Traveller
12 comments

I just realized your have another option, which is from Santiago to Irun/Hendaye via San Sebastien and TGV to Paris from there. This is more direct but not necessarily faster. Again the man in seat 61 did elaborate on the topic describing the schedule from Lisbon: https://www.seat61.com/international-trains/trains-from-Lisbon.htm#Lisbon_to_Paris

By the way, once in France, bahn.de is your best source of info. In Spain they will only show the main connections, the rest must be found on renfe.com or even more local.