Is this a good plan?

anonymous
Traveller
2467 comments

Posted 15 years ago

Me and my boyfriend are from Portugal and our first stop in the Interrail is going to be Paris.

We refuse to pay for the Elipsos Hotel train, it's too expensive for us, and as for the Sud-Express (Lisbon-Hendaye) it only leaves at about 4pm and we feel like we're losing a whole day of travel with it (we want to go to a lot of cities).

So we decided that we'd go to Badajoz, in the frontier, and cross Spain in the following trains:

Dep. Badajoz (Talgo): 7:35
Arr. Madrid - Puerta de Atocha: 12:51

Dep. Madrid - Puerta de Atocha (AVE 03133): 13:30
Arr. Barcelona Sants: 16:54

Dep. Barcelona Sants (regional train R15839): 17:25
Arr. Cerbere: 20:07

Dep. Cerbere (night train 3730): 21:21
Arr. Paris Austerlitz: 07:27


Well, I don't know if we're going to too much trouble just to be a few more hours in Paris.

The problem with this plan is that I've heard horrors about Renfe's punctuality, and I'm worried that one of the trains might be late and then we'll miss the other ones, particularly with the regional train.

I don't know if this is such a good idea, but do you think we should buy the tickets in advance, and risk losing the money if we don't get there on time, or buy them on each station, with the possibility of the train already being full (particularly the night train, as we're arriving close to its departure).