Arles to Barcelona

Arles to Barcelona turned out to be a trip and a half.

Leg 1: To Gare d’Arles (railway station)

Given we somehow ended up with more suitcases than people, we had twice used taxis/Uber to get to the railway stations to catch our trains between cities.

In the big cities this is straightforward. Uber makes it very easy – no mucking about with the local currency, and you can request a vehicle big enough for four people and five suitcases.

But it doesn’t work in some smaller towns. In Arles, the app doesn’t let you choose a bigger vehicle. In fact after problems in Lyon, we were worried about anything turning up at all.

And we had to be on time to make our train connections.

So we pre-booked it for 7:15am.

If a small vehicle turned up, we’d load the slower walkers and as much luggage as would fit into it, and the others would hoof it to the station (a 20 minute brisk walk).

By 7:10am, the app was telling us nothing. It hadn’t even allocated a driver.

Could it be that “pre-booking” an Uber does no such thing – instead it waits until the travel time and then finds you a car, just as if you entered the details there and then?

Too risky. The clock was ticking.

We put plan B into action. Cancel the Uber. (No cost if not allocated.)

Walk to the bus stop. Catch the 7:23am bus to the station. It takes a roundabout route, but would get us there in about 20 minutes.

This worked a treat, and had everything you want as an occasional user.

• live tracking on Google Maps so we could be confident it was coming
• accepts bank card fare payment
• low floor bus, so easy with the suitcases, as long as I stood in a position blocking them from rolling away
• frequent service every 15-20 minutes, so we’d still get to the station on time even if we missed our bus or it was cancelled

And the route took us past one sight we hadn’t seen: the slightly odd Gehry Tower.

So that was a success, but our problems were just beginning.

Leg 2: Arles to Nimes

Okay, having arrived at the station on time, we wanted the 8:08am train from Arles to Nimes Centre.

The people waiting on the platform were looking concerned. The train before ours, the 7:50 to Lyon, was delayed, and getting later and later.

Trains in the opposite direction went past, and occasionally there’d be an announcement in French (too fast-paced for us to understand), but no sign of our train.

We had a 30 minute connection in Nimes, and started to worry we’d miss it.

A friendly local called Tristan interpreted for us, including, critically, when they announced they’d moved our train from platform 2B to platform 2, an old-looking platform covered with weeds, across the tracks.

(Parts of Arles station were looking a bit shabby, but I noticed a poster about upgrades underway, so fair enough.)

It got later and later. The 30 minute connection time slowly disappeared. Tristan remarked that delays are, sadly, not unusual.

We pondered trying to get a cab to Nimes but driving is slower than the train, and by this point we’d miss our 9:02 train from Nimes to Barcelona no matter what.

Sigh. We might end up spending the day in Nimes waiting for a later service.

At 8:52, our train finally showed up, about 45 minutes late.

It was another old, high floor train, and they did ticket checks as we boarded, meaning the platform dwell time was pretty long. Not ideal during delays.

Every other train we’d taken on the holiday had been dead on time… except this one, when it really counted.

We rolled into Nimes about 20 minutes after our connection to Barcelona was scheduled to have left. While en route I was checking one of the apps online, which said it had left on time, without us.

Leg 3: Nimes to Barcelona

So we joined others in a queue at the booking office to find out what we could do. Could they change our tickets to a later train? Would we need to book something ourselves then claim a refund on the original tickets?

Our onward journey was booked with Spanish train company Renfe, but French SNCF staff were triaging the queue. A helpful SNCF lady said she spoke a little bit of English (way more than my French, as it turned out). I showed her the app showing the late connection.

She said the train to Barcelona was also delayed. Given I’d checked this and it wasn’t showing earlier, I thought she misunderstood me and pointed to the app. She spotted that the app was now saying that it was, indeed, delayed.

Hallelujah! I’ve never been more pleased to hear my train was late. The god of train delays was, for once, smiling upon us.

She showed us to the lift to platform B where we could wait for it. Merci beaucoup!!

As it happens, it wasn’t just a bit late, it was a lot late. We had quite a bit of waiting on that platform. The train ended up being about 90 minutes late.

About this time, an email arrived from Renfe, in a curious mix of Spanish, English and French, but with useful info for us.

Hola Daniel, información de tu viaje a Barcelona-Sants del 27/10/2025. Suite à un incident sur les infrastructures SNCF, votre train circulera sur une ligne conventionnelle, ce qui retardera votre trajet. Veuillez suivre les instructions de notre personnel. Nous vous prions de nous excuser pour la gêne occasionnée.

Hello Daniel, information about your trip to Barcelona-Sants on 10/27/2025. Following an incident on SNCF infrastructure, your train will run on a conventional line, which will delay your journey. See the instructions from our personnel. Nous vous prions de nous excuser pour la gêne occasionnée.

We learned later it had been vandalism – a deliberate fire that damaged cables – causing widespread disruptions, including our delayed trains.

As we waited, we checked the information on the platform and the app. This indicated we should board at the front of the train. It turned out to be wrong – car 2 was second-last, not second. Oh well.

Happily once on the train, there were no further delays.

And there was some great scenery.

We were able to make good use of the well stocked cafe bar. Hot drinks, sandwiches, snacks, all served up no problems, and very edible. It reminded me once again that it’s such a shame V/Line is abandoning onboard catering.

The train rolled along at various speeds, some sections at 160, some at 200, some at 300km/h.

I try not to believe in stereotypes, but I couldn’t help notice the conductor got into a discussion with a couple at the end of the carriage about their tickets, and I heard the male passenger say with a North American accent – not shouting, but somehow mysteriously loud enough for us to hear – “so whaddaya gonna do, throw us off the train?”

No dear reader, they did not get thrown off the train, though potentially that would have been entertaining to the rest of us.

Close to the French/Spanish border, our south-east bound track passed under the track heading in the opposite direction. In France trains mostly run on the left – in Spain on the right.

¡Hola Barcelona!

We rolled into Barcelona at 14:20, about 100 minutes late. But we’d arrived.

Barcelona Sants station is clearly in the middle of a big upgrade. Very much a construction zone at street level.

We had a booked pickup – not via Uber. This whisked us to the apartment, which was more-or-less opposite the Egyptian Museum. During our stay for the next few days I got into the habit of entering this into the journey planners to navigate our way back.

It was great to be here. The streets were lively, and – again – different to what you see in Australia. More about that later.

Once settled in we found a local supermercado (supermarket) and bought some essentials. We’d discover that in this part of the city, they’re commonplace, but not all identical, some bigger with a larger range, some smaller.

As it got dark, we had a walk around the block and found the nearby Casa Batlló, a town house designed by Gaudi, which we had booked a day or two later. It was busy, crowds milling around.

By this point it was dinner time, and we found a restaurant to eat, and ordered paella. Yummo.

Time to explore tomorrow!