Paris Train to Barcelona

[gbcruise]

I have been waiting for Sat. Oct 26 to open up to purchase Paris to Barcelona train tickets. Suddenly this single date does not have any train travel that is leaving and arriving in one day like all other Saturdays, it leaves on Saturday and arrives late afternoon Sunday. All other dates have the single day travel with 6 hours total travel. Why would it be like this? I need to travel on this particular day. Any advice would be helpful, I have tried several train lines with no success. Thank you!

[Milhouse]

Maybe there's track maintenance going on or a labour disruption?

 

There seems to be trains from Paris to Montpellier and Toulouse but not from Montpellier and Toulouse to Barcelona on Oct 26.  Maybe you can train it down to one of those cities and then bus it the rest of the way to Barcelona.  

Alternatively, maybe you can do a LCC like Vueling and fly from Paris to Barcelona?

 

Many years back, we booked the reverse, Barcelona to Paris and our plans got derailed due to a train strike in Spain.  We had to scramble and ended up taking a bus to Montpellier and then taking the TGV to Paris.  (Our trip was further complicated by needing to change buses half way to Montpellier do to a mechanical issue and the TGV stopping for like an hour in the middle of nowhere due to debris on the electrical lines.)

 

 

[gbcruise]

Thank you for your response. I will check the flights. First time trying to use the train system so I thought maybe I was doing something wrong. Looks like air is the way I would prefer to go. How is Vueling for a short flight?

[Milhouse]

We flew on Vueling from Rome to Barcelona after our cruise in 2013 so things may be different.  

Our experience:  Our flight was delayed by about an hour, which is common risk when flying on a LCC.  I'm 5'11" and I found the seat pitch fairly tight but for a sub two hour flight, I could live with it.  I would consider flying with them again.  

It looks like Easyjet also flies from Paris to Barcelona too so you may want to check them out as an option too but keeping in mind it's a LCC too (ie delay potential, leg room issues, extra fees for luggage especially if you didn't book ahead, etc).