Graciela

Hola fellow fodorianos, I will be traveling from Florence to Paris in September and I need a low cost airline that will get me there. I will also be traveling from Paris to Gijon, Spain a week later and I need an airport that is close to the city and an airline that will get me there. Any info will be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Andre

Graciela,

The closest you can get to Florence with a low fare carrier is Milano LINATE (more convenient than Malpensa) on EasyJet. Take the train to Milano Centrale, then the bus to the airport. Otherwise, VolareWeb flies to Paris from Malpensa (a longer bus ride from the station).

The closest airport to Gijon is Santander, which is only served by Iberia. Your best (though convoluted) bet is to fly Air Europa from Paris to Madrid, then change to Iberia for the Madrid to Santander leg, which should be halfway affordable (domestic airfares are priced much more fairly than international ones on Iberia). The bus from Santander to Gijon takes about 3 hours.

If Iberia is too pricey, you could take the bus (5.5-6 hours) from Madrid to Gijon.

The "fastest" way would be to fly nonstop on Air France to Bilbao, then take the bus (4 to 4.5 hours) to Gijon.

Airlines:
www.easyjet.com
www.volareweb.com
www.aireuropa.com
www.iberia.es (NOT .com)

Trains:
www.trenitalia.com

Buses:
www.alsa.es

Hope this helps,
Andre

bitsy

We're booked on ''City Jet'' out of Paris to Florence, and returning to Paris early/mid October. This was done on frequent flyer miles through Delta, using Air France as a partner.. Don't know costs, but there's a name of an airline for you.

Andre

OK - just realized that the most convenient aiport to Gijon is ASTURIAS (Oviedo), not Santander.

The cheapest connection would be to fly EasyJet from Paris to Barcelona, then Iberia to Asturias (again booking through the spanish Iberia site for a cheap domestic fare). There's bus service (1 hour) from Asturias airport to Gijon on Alsa (see my previous message).

I would also check what it costs to travel the entire route on Iberia (via Madrid or Barcelona) - it would be a lot less stressful as you could check your luggage through and get both boarding passes in Paris already.

Re: City Jet from Florence - these are the Air France flights, which are extremely expensive.

Hope this helps,
Andre

Graciela

Thank you Andre and bitzy for your prompt and helpful information. I decided to go with Iberia. It turned out that when I contacted them directly they flew out of Paris at a very reasonable rate. For whatever reason they did not post Paris as a destination for them???!!!! Thanks again for your help : ).