Rifka
Traveller
4 comments
Posted 1 year ago
We are planning to Go to Sevilla by train. This seems to be very difficult. Has anybody done this trip before and has some tips, which is the easiest route? We plan to stay one night somewhere half the way…. Is it possible to make the way in 2 days?
And where we can buy the tickets in advance?
Is Interrail the best option, or are there others which may be better?
We are 2 adult and 1 15 year old teenager
nltrainer
Traveller
1404 comments
Min, ja, das haben schon Leute gemacht, wenn auch zB ab K oder D oder mehr S=Sverige=Schweden. Dann kommen die an MS vorbei.
IF you also want to com back same way, and within 1 month, then indeed InterRail is best choice. It has its own forum where this same has been posted several times-but again perhaps from other nearby places. It also has much more info as this forum: community.eurail.com
Its daft simple: bahn.de can show tmes, but most likely (did not state for when) you are still too early for summer. Use a samedayofweek in march or so to glimpse timings.
Fastest, not cheapest, is to D or K, Thalys to Paris, cross city with metro (pay for ticket), direct superfast FR TGV to Barcelona, stay overnite (ESpana has no more nighttrenes), then next day, if really very lucky, direct AVE (their ICE or TGV) to Svl-or else via Madrid and change.
The big major hassle with Passes is how to book seats at the dates you have set in mind and the general (my idea) Deutsch Idea of always being überpünktlich. Some flexibility will help a lot. Also the seat-RES for this will not be cheap-count on another 100€ or so=more as a cheap airticket all the way.
You can cut this cost by using other trains/routes=making it slower. Anyway-IF you want to do the whole by mitm zug, then use it to also visit some places in between-with a plane that would be hard.
Biggest prob is that RENFE =the DB in ES, in fact only let you make the always needed RES for seats when there and in summer it will be full then for short notice. It is by far #1 in making life difficult for passholders-bu if they would not do that all their trenes and asientos would carry only nearly free going passholders......
Arend7
Traveller
645 comments
I should spend the night in Paris instead Barcelona. From there you can reach Sevilla in 1 day starting with the 9:38 to from Gare de Lyon (Lyon is also the name of a suburb in Paris) to Barcelona. You have to change stations there anyway and you can avoid the expensive Thalys by taking the ICE from Karlsruhe, another K, I think , over S(trassbourg) to Paris Est (1 km nearer to G. de Lyon). One hour longer than the Thalys but much cheaper (also reservation needed but also a lot cheaper).
Use www.bahn.de for the timetables and www.omio.com for the tickets. From there compare the prices with/at www.interrail.eu (don’t forget including the manadatory reservations still to make around € 100 indeed).
Rifka
Traveller
4 comments
Thank you, for all the good ideas!
We will go round Easter next year, this will not make it much easier with reservations than Summer I think....
We love to go by train for many reasons....but not easy to go to South España. With Nighttrains to Italy is so much easier.
My family also would go to Italy . But I like to show them all the places I loved when I was there in Andalucía 20 years ago ...
MisterSteve
Traveller
1090 comments
You are correct in the first thought - it is very difficult. Not just the planning and ticket purchase but also the travel. There could be a lot of changing trains. Do you have experience of long train journeys as a family with luggage?
Interrail Four days in One Month would work as a ticket but the problem of Spanish reservations is a major negative, and the French reservations might be easier but are still an extra cost.
DB have Sparpreis Europa tickets which can be cheap but they are only available for journeys that use some part of DB Fern (other German trains are permitted as connections) and go directly into neighbouring countries which might get you close to the Spanish border. The problem for you is that the fastest options from Münster to the South of France are via Belgium which breaks the rule. And Thalys are not included in the deal. And it would still be a lot more expensive than Interrail and you would still have the Spanish part of the journey to pay for.
As a route I would look at using the direct TGV from Bruxelles to Nimes which is possible by ICE from Münster (05:02 departure) changing at Köln to Bruxelles (arrive 09:35). The TGV departs at 10:17 and arrive Nimes at 15:30 and there is a connection at 16:05 than goes to the Spanish border at Port Bou arriving 19:47. You could overnight in a French town like Narbonne or push on to Girona (possible by 21:17). Girona to Sevilla is easy - apart from getting reservations!!
Rifka
Traveller
4 comments
Another good possibility! Many thanks. Yes,cwe do all our travels by train, but usually not so far away. We love the possibility of Nighttrains. In my childhood we often went by Nighttrain from Köln / Cologne to Basel to go further to North Italy or the Wallis.
In the last year's we went to Tirol by trains via Münster- Düsseldorf- Innsbruck - Bruneck. This was a fantastic journey.
My farest train trip was to Inari in Finnland. Nighttrain Cologne - Kopenhagen - ferry to Sweden - train to Stockholm - ferry to Turku - train to Helsinki - Nighttrain to Rovaniemi - bus to Inari.
I loved it.
But all this seems to be much easier, than travelling to South Spain.
:-)
Rifka
Traveller
4 comments
PS, my mother travelled a few years ago through all the "Stans" (Usbekistan, Tadschikistan, Turkmenistán etc) by train....this is more adventure....
We have a problem of time in depending on school holidays. This seems to me the major problem. A flight isn't much cheaper in this times and also costs much more time than the flight itself....getting to an airport worst case one day earlier etc. And we love to feel the distance when we travel, the change of landscape and so on.
Arend7
Traveller
645 comments
The EU has new plans for nighttrains. See https://transport.ec.europa.eu/news/connecting-europe-train-10-eu-pilot-services-boost-cross-border-rail-2023-01-31_en
MisterSteve
Traveller
1090 comments
It's ironic - or annoying - that the London to Scotland night trains are considered to be the best of their type, they were built in Spain but the RENFE aren't interested in running night trains in Spain. And their London terminal is 10 minutes walk from the Eurostar arrivals terminal. The Scottish weather won't be as good as southern Spain but your journey would be easier!
Rifka
Traveller
4 comments
There's an Amsterdam Barcelona Nighttrain planned...that would help. Münster isn't so far from Amsterdam.
Good to know.
MisterSteve
Traveller
1090 comments
Planned might be an exaggeration. About three weeks ago a company with no apparent previous experience won support from the European Commission to run such a service. At thattime the press made wild estimates that it would run from December this year. The company has no timescale on it's own website but claims to have received €2½million external funding. And then the problems start. Last year Czech Railways announced they would run a Prague-Zurich night train starting December 2022 - which they did. But they didn't have enough spare sleeper or couchette cars of tehir own so had to hunt around companies that had bought up old cars and were offering them in a refurbished state. Within a couple of weeks the couchette cars had shown themselves to be so unreliable they were taken out of service - a lesson that should be heeded. Going to Barcelona will be more difficult because the track gauge of the main network is different to most of Europe. So they need to find either old cars with adjustable axles (very few ever existed) or slightly newer ones that can run on the high speed line between France and Barcelona. And get them refurbished. New cars couldn't be ordered and built in time and would cost about €1 million each. It makes December 2023 look very doubtful. Try 2025!