Probably 15 or 20 years ago or so we did a family trip to Europe that included a lovely stay in the French village of St. Jean de Luz, right near Biarritz and the Spanish border. While there, I had hoped to get to Bilbao to see Gehry's Guggenheim Bilbao (a little over an hour away) but it never happened. Time to go to Bilbao now, to see the museum and a different part of Spain. I looked at the calendar to plan a two or three night getaway from Valencia and began looking at transportation possibilities. Train or plane? Turns out you can fly to Paris from Valencia for half the cost of getting to Bilbao, but last time I looked the City of Love had dozens of museums however nothing designed by our recently departed genius. And besides, I have been to Paris probably half a dozen times. (Not that I don't love that city.) So, Bilbao! The train cost a little less than flying, but was a six hour journey at best (up to fourteen hours!) and the plane trip was a little over an hour. Either way, more than 2X the cost of a trip to Paris (not everything over here is Ryan Air) - but in the end, flying was the choice. A lesson learned - flying is almost as long, if not longer, more expensive and certainly at this point in life more stressful than taking the train.
So really, really consider train travel over here........................................................To illustrate: Taxi to VLC airport, 25 euro, two runs through security (oops, laptop left in carry-on bag, not to mention sunscreen, tossed by Spanish TSA), finding the gate, multiple lines at the gate to board, seating in emergency exit row (a blessing) but it meant that the flight attendant tossed my crossover bag up into storage where it got buried beneath multiple bags and I had to be the last passenger to deplane after finally finding it, negotiating a new airport (fun fact, I wanted some English language stuff to read in my new locale, saw an outside rack at a newstand that had a 'Financial Times and a copy of The Economist - bought them both and when I got my "ticket", i.e. receipt, was stunned to see the bad news -) 28 euro for casual reading material, taxi to city center, 28 euro...the perceived advantages of flying just don't hold up. Yeah, the time it takes the train to get there is longer (but not by much - the air trip to Bilbao was 10a, leaving the apartment, to 4p when I finally got settled in my bed and breakfast), but the ease of walking onto a train car, settling in and relaxing for six hours while Spain whizzes by, and disembarking smack in the middle of the city you actually came to see, low stress level across the board - kind of priceless. Looking forward to my time here, not so much the trip back!
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