Bordeaux to Barcelona, is this nuts?
 

I've researched flights, trains, and car rentals to get from Bordeaux to Barcelona on the date we need per recommendations on this board. Trains take too long with too many changes for our comfort and the drop off charge on the rental car is prohibitive. The desired flight Bordeaux-Geneva-Barcelona doesn't fly on the date we need and I don't really trust EasyJet (they cancelled their one flight a day Krakow-Berlin and really messed with our vacation program two years ago).
So I've found an Air France flight from Bordeaux to Orly (departs 8:40 am arrives 9:50) and an Iberia flight leaving Orly at 12:25, arriving in Barcelona at 2:00 pm. Total cost for both is $145. Is this too crazy or the best I can probably do?

Forgot to mention that we considered driving to Lyon but decided against it because the driver would be too tired driving nearly 5 hours, checking in twoo hours in advance and then getting on an EasyJet flight to Barcelona.

Staying overnight within an hour of the Lyon airport meant getting up at 5:30 am in order to be at the airport at 7:45 for the 9:45 am flight, remember you have to check in 2 hours ahead because its an international flight.

Dates?

Hi Robbie,

At first glance, i was inclined to agree that you're bats, but if you are trying to do Bordeaux to Barcelona in a day, there are no easy routes.

first of all i looked at bahn.de for trains - the best I found was with one change, and it's difficult to do it in less than 8 hours. Then I wandered aobut driving from Bordeaus to somewhere in france where you could leave the car, and avoid high drop=off charges - i came up with a drive of 3 1/2 hour draive from B'deaux to Narbonne and another 4 hours for Narbonne to Barcelona via girona.

assuming a 7.30 arrival at Bordeaux for your flight to Orly, you arrive at barcelona some 7 or so hours later, so the times compare favourably, and at $145 each i expect that the costs do too [assuming there are only two of you].

The only variation I would suggest would be if you had longer than one day to do this ttrip - in which case I would drive to Narbonne and spend the night there before getting te htrain to Barcelona. [a friend has a niece living there and she loves it].

regards, ann

Well, it sure sounds crazy to me - going all the way back to Paris to fly over the same route? Are you SURE you checked all the train options, and flights from the smaller airports, and driving to Perpignan or somewhere on the coast and training from there?

If you drove to Limoges you could take the overnight Trenhotel to Barcelona. I've taken the Trenhotel from Barcelona to Milan in second class, and it was really quite comfortable, if you could afford first it would probably be luxurious, but I thought second was just fine. See www.elipsos.com for details on timetables and rates, and seat61.com/Spain.htm#Barcelona for pix.

Just curious because we hope to move to SW France within a year and I need to learn these things. How prohibitive is the car drop-off? More than $145 times however many are in your party? When you posted earlier I thought you were going out of your way to Bordeaux just to fly to Barcelona. If Bordeaux is a desired destination before Barcelona and if you really want to fly, who's to say you're not doing the right thing? But, what is the drop-off charge?

Drop pff charges run $400-$500. We're traveling mid September, planning to spend 9 days in the Dordogne and Lot valley (hence flying into Bordeaux). I'm the driver and love scenic drives of 1-3 hours at a crack but really dislike driving into cities or driving for 4+ hours.
I checked flights out of Biarritz, Marsailles, Nice, Toulouse, Lyon. I will check Perpignan and others and report back. Merci.
I'm going to check the train option mentioned above. I personally love train travel but we're dealing with two couples: my husband is 71 and I'm 63 but the other couple are 83 and 80 and none of us can take luggage on and off more than one train without worry of injury.

Maybe someone will post who remembers whether or not there's porter service at one of these stations. My husband may be taking the train from Tarbes up to Toulouse in a couple of weeks and I can ask him to check at the Toulouse station, assuming his train goes in to the main station (I think it does).

It seems to me if you get to a large station early and go to the information desk, they would be able to find someone to help. But, I understand it may be a risk you don't want to take.

I've googled the Toulouse station and don't see anything about porter service but really couldn't find much information at all. Perpignan is a good idea as well.

Does it all have to happen in one day? That's a bit brutal for those folks in your party.
The flights via Paris does no seem crazy to me at all - so what if you go a bit in the "wrong" directon - this is all about making a connection or not making one. If that's the only one, so what? B

But if a four-hour drive (or less depending on where you will be as you take off for Barcelona) is not too much, with plenty of time to stop and rest, have you tried the following?

If you start out in Bordeaux (rather than closer somewhere in the Dordogne) you can drive to Narbonne in less than four hours (stops not included). So take it easy, stop for lunch and a bit of a siesta.

in Narbonne you can take the TALGO train at 16:11 that gets into Barcelona (Franca) at 20:19, with no need for any changes en route, so once on and once off, and arriving in plenty of time to find your hotel, check in, and go out for dinner.

Merci y muchimas gracias. So I've now learned that according to Via Michelin it takes 2 1/2 hours (non-stop) to drive Cahors to Narbonne. If we decide to drive to Barcelona, we can lunch and walk in Narbonne and later drive another 2 1/2 hours to Barcelona. My guy at Avis just emailed me back with a "special" drop off rate of 229e, much better than previous quote.
OR as DalaiLLama suggests we can dump the car at the train station and take the train. Do I book the Talgo train on sncf (which I find very confusing) or another way. I much prefer the afternoon train option. As soon as our travel buddies return from the Middle East, I'll confer with them. Stay tuned, I'll have questions about our Dordogne routing and pacing.
I will also check this site more frequently in hopes that I can give back on places I know.

Hi RT,

Since you will be in the Dordogne, not Bordeaux, I also recommend taking the train.

The 16:11 train recommended by DL, leaves Perpignan at 16:54, if that helps.

((I))

There's no Avis in Perpignan, so dropping the car at the train station in Narbonne is perfect!

Yes, on SNCF, but it's way too early, you can book no earlier than 90 days. If by then you have trouble, check with the folks at http://www.budgeteuropetravel.com/index.html