Would love some advice. Does anyone know how difficult it is to drive from San Sebastian to Barcelona? A flight is about the same price as a train but the times are very limited. We'd love to see the countryside. How hard is it to get to the center of town where our hotels is [ Hotel Inglaterra]. We'd park and not use the car until we left.
Last summer we drove everywhere from Malaga to Seville, Granada etc. without any problems but the roads were excellent. Thanks so much for any advice.

I'm also traveling from San Sebastian to Barcelona June 23rd. As we are 3 it may be better to rent a car. I would also know if I can rent a car in San Sebastian and drop it in Barcelona.

We drove from SS to Barcelona, but we really wandered. How much time are you planning on spending on the drive? I had printed out a google map for our apt in Barcelona and amazingly had no trouble getting to it when we got to Barcelona. Since the apt was on a pedestrian street, we looked for the first garage we saw and parked the rental car. We returned the rental car that day and again had no problem finding the rental place.

pookymimi, yes you can rent in San Sebastian and drop off in Barcelona. I did that.

I drove through France, and found all of it easy -- however, I did make an excursion of it, going up and down the Pyrenees over the course of a couple of days, and had nothing but good roads. Had I not stopped, I could have made it half a day, all on high-speed roads. My experiences of roads on the Spanish side were that they were not in as good shape, but yestravel has more experience of them -- and the few Spanish roads I took were by no means awful. They were fine.

annielou, I take it you are going someplace following Barcelona that you need a car?

Take the highway south towards Pamplona, (A15 if memory serves) continue south to Zarragoza, turn east on the A2 and continue to Barcelona. You can get detailed instructions on Guide Michelin or mappy.com.

Thank you all! We're doing a home exchange with a family from San Sebastian and their car is included in the trade. On the way down to Barcelona, we'll go straight to our hotel [ Hotel Inglaterra] Should it take 5 or 6 hours driving? On the way back we'll wander. Where would you stay on the way back?
Again thanks
Annielou

That's 5 to 6 hours "driving". It doesn't include a stop of lunch and fuel, so you should add at least 3 hours to your schedule, more if you actually want to stop somewhere along the way. The most scenic route would be to take the N240 out of Pamplona, passing through Jaca before heading down to Huesca. If you wanted see anything else, then you should plan on spending the night in the La Tena Valley. It's a beautiful drive.

Lucky u! How many days will u take to drive back? Do you want to drive 3-4 hours and then stop and sightsee or drive longer and just spend the night in a place or two? Are you intersted in staying in an area for a couple days? Want to go into France? prefer mountains or coast? There are lots of ways to go and it depends on what you're interested in seeing.
Found the roads in Spain to be just fine, well paved, easy to navigate with well marked signage. Even the mountain roads, while narrow and curvy were fine for driving. We used a michelin map to plan our routes.

annielou,

I would go down through Spain and back through France, or vice versa. If you are wandering back through France, I would focus on the area around Cauterets and the Pont d'Espagne in the high Pyrenees.

Thanks Robert and yestravel,
We're in no rush to get back but as August 1 approaches the roads will be littered with European travelers on vacation.I think we want to stay on the main route so we don't get too lost. So we'll probably just spend an extra day, a few hours driving then sightseeing and spending the night. What towns do you suggest? We'll stay in Spain for this excursion then go to southern France later in our trip.
Also,how far is Pamploma to SS?

You'll find less traffic on the N240 to Huesca. Most of the traffic will be in further south.

Pamplona is about an easy hour's drive from San Sebastian-Donostia following the A15, but the best route is following the N121A through the Baztan Valley.