Travelling by Train

The first time we went to this area was a little bit further to the north, during the summer holidays of 2021. We wanted to visit Araia, because Tibor figured out that we could reach it in one day by train. We were planning to do that in May 2020 when Covid threw our plans in the water. What we knew then, to be able to reach it in one day, we needed to walk from Hendaye station to Irun station (so from France to Spain), about a 30 minutes walk. That first time we found out that there was also a metro like train running from Hendaye to Irun and San Sebastian.

Now we didn’t buy an abandoned village close to Araia, but a little further south. The closest station is 30 km from Bárcena, that is not reachable in one day by public transport from the Netherlands, because trains only stop there 3 times a day. It is possible to reach Miranda de Ebro or maybe even better, go to Vitoria / Gasteiz, because you can rent a car there.

These are the steps you have to take to get there by train (from Amsterdam cs):

take thalys to station Paris gare du Nord (3 hours 20 min)
walk (1 hour 15 min) to Paris gare Montparnasse or take the metro (0.5 hours)
take the TGV to Hendaye (4 hours 40 min)
take the Euskotren to San Sebastian (stop Amara Donostia, 35 min) and walk 10 minutes to San Sebastian train station.
take the train to Vitoria / Gasteiz (1.5 hours)

In Vitoria Gasteiz we rented a car several times via the app Amovens (https://amovens.com), where you can rent a car from private persons. It’s about an hour drive from Vitoria

Another option is to get off the TGV half an hour before Hendaye, in Biarritz and rent a car there. From there it is 2.5 hours driving to Bárcena.

In summer it is also possible to take the night train from Paris to Hendaye

The trip is quite fast untill you reach the border of Spain.

Luckily we have some good news there:.

Renfe and Adif are working on a high speed line between Hendaye and Madrid (via San Sebastian, Vitoria/Gasteiz and Burgos) .

Information about this on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basque_Y

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