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Looking at going to Spain possibly in the autumn, and rather than fly, and a bit inspired by @Mark trip to the Alps a while back. is there a good site to book through? I need to get from Manchester to Northern Spain (san Sebastien) which in theory at least, should be fairly straight forward?
et voila...
Et voila pour vous...
The site design is terrible, but the content is superb. All you need to know about European train travel
Back in the day (pre-Brexit) I used the German railways site.
They did tickets from and to non-sausage side locations.
May have to start a trip from Euroland now though.
Big advantage is that they have an English speaking helpline if you get stuck / need changes etc. And they were brilliant.
You planning to take a bike ?
I've eurostarred from London to France then done the mad cross Paris journey to the other station to get the Spain train to Barcelona a fair few times.
Its reasonably straightforward (although I've used a booking company to do hotels as well.)
When its gone bad, ie French strikes its been bad.
Last time I did it I had to fly back as I was in the middle of a strike, twas a total 'mare.
May be less stress to Ferry to Spain and drive 🙂
trainline
Edit:
thetrainline.com
does cross border journeys very well. There is a catch, getting the tickets which are normally picked up at SNCF reception or in a machine. In Germany the tickets have to be sent by post. It all works and can be very cheap but you need to book far enough in advance to get the tickets sent to you for countries other than France.
I always used to use Loco2 which was great but that has now become RailEurope - not tried it since the change.
The Austrian Railways site also allows booking from one side of Europe to another and in English.
As mentioned I'd use a combo of checking routes and suggestion via seat61 and then booking and timetables via RailEurope. He's also pretty responsive on email if you have any specific questions.
Back in the day (pre-Brexit) I used the German railways site.
Ich auch.
Bahn.de is what I always used for ski connections.
The site design is terrible
Seat61 site design is perfectly good.
Trainline mobile app. Has all the major European carriers.