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Getting there
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The quickest and easiest way of reaching Barcelona is to fly direct to El Prat de Llobregat, the city's airport. Catalunya's other major airport, Girona - used mainly by charter flights and less than an hour from resorts on the Costa Brava - is also handy for Barcelona. Only ninety minutes from the city by train, it's an attractive point of entry into Catalunya in its own right, and is often much cheaper to reach than Barcelona itself. The other charter airport in the region is at Reus, west of Tarragona, again just ninety minutes from Barcelona by bus or train.
How much you pay to get there depends on the season, with the highest fares being from May to September, when the weather is best; then dropping during the "shoulder" seasons - March-April and October-November - with the best prices during the low season, December to February (excluding Christmas and New Year when prices are hiked up and seats are at a premium). Note also that flying on weekends may add to the round-trip fare; price ranges quoted here assume midweek travel. You can often cut costs by going through a specialist flight agent - either a consolidator, buys up blocks of tickets from the airlines and sells them at a discount, or a discount agent, who in addition to dealing with discounted flights may also offer special student and youth fares and a range of other travel-related services such as travel insurance, rail passes, car rentals, tours and the like. Some agents specialize in charter flights, which may be cheaper than anything available on a scheduled flight, but again departure dates are fixed and withdrawal penalties are high.
Another option if travelling from Britain is to go by
train, bus or car
, though these inevitably take much longer than a plane and often work out no cheaper. Other useful information
for tourists (each section contains more specific sub-sections): |
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Spain,
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