From Dordogne to Barcelona

Hello, my husband and I are planning to take our kids (7 %26amp; 4) to

Barcelona after visiting Dordogne, France, in August. I haven%26#39;t found the best way to do it. We%26#39;ll have a car and don%26#39;t mind the 6 hr drive, but we want to avoid the hefty international drop off charge of U.S. $260. I want to be able to drop off the car back in France and take a short coach or train ride into spain, or even switching the rental car as long as no drop off charge. Is that possible? I do want to cut down the travel time because of the small kids, and taking the train from Dordogne to Barcelona seems so long and expensive. I also checked out Euroline coach service but that arrives into Barcelona at wee hour at 2:30 in the morning. Is the drive from Dordogne to Barcelona difficult? From ViaMichellin I can%26#39;t tell whether there%26#39;re lots of mountain driving to cross the mountains. Are there any rentals that won%26#39;t have steep drop off charge? Any advice is appreciated.

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The fastest way would be to go to Toulouse and take the highway to Barcelona via Carcassonne , Narbonne and Perpignan (flat land). You would drop your car in Perpignan and take the 6.36 pm train (called Talgo) to Barcelona.

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I agree with Pvoyageuse, except that I am showing the departure time of the evening train from Perpignan to Barcelona as 18:31 — not a big deal.

It would take about 4 hours with minimal stops to drive to Perpignan depending exactly where you are starting off from. (The Dordogne valley area is pretty large...) Along the way you really should take the time to visit Carcassonne with your children. The older one in particular would absolutely love it!

You could either take the evening train as suggested arriving in Barcelona at 21:45 (according to the timetable I looked at) or spend the night in Perpignan (not a bad place to do so) and take the 08:56 train arriving in Barcelona at 11:46 — just in time for lunch!

If you want to drive check with autoeurope.com or kemwel.com, preferably using their toll-free phone numbers, to see if you can get the drop-off fee reduced by using another rental company. The direct route does involve driving through the Pyrenees but the road by Bourg Madame is good and there is nothing really difficult about the route. I would put it at closer to 8 hours than 6 with minimal stops with young children though. if you want to avoid the mountain driving just take the same route via Carcassonne and Perpignan. It probably wouldn%26#39;t add much time to the trip, except for the time you would spend at carcassonne, probably at least a couple of hours.

Good luck!

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Thank you very much for the helpful advice! We%26#39;re now considering that and looking into the car rentals, need to make sure the car rentals can be dropped off at Perpignan.

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