Travelling from Spain (Barcelona) to France (Paris), fully booked trains and reservation by mail

The for now best way is to split it up and DO learn the rail tricks (once there was an USA-man, Rick Steves-who wrote a lot of boox on how to sue that precious EUrailpass-maybe your library still stocks some work from him) that we here have to tell about daily-noone seems to realise s/he is not the very 1st one to ask same-same all the time:

UN-RES local RENFE rodalies tren till Port Bou/Cerbere (border posts-out of use as such)

Overnight train SNCF to Paris-seats or couchette=lie down bunk, not what is called a real sleeper.

It seems also each&every newbee wants to take exactly those trains and routes that are hardest to get-be adventurous and not just cart off the few of those hi-speed raillines.

Hi, Maybe my answer is belated. We just came Back from Spain and found the reservation Systems in spain and France very inconsistent. While in France, you can reserve online or by phone, but never get places on the fast trains because they are sold out months before, in Spain it‘s the opposite. You can get your reservation only at the Ticket office but generally, they have places. But you have to wait long hours- in Barcelona, we spent 3 ½ hours at the railway station, in Sevilla, 1 ½ Hours. In france, you can take regional Trains, but in spain, they generally require reservation as well.

On our way to Spain, we passed France by regional trains and also got à regional Train from Port Bou to Barcelona. Then , we could take the AVE. On our way Back to Germany, we Took the airplane because of all These insecurities and delays (in France, for example, we got into one of These frequent railworker strikes). So we couldn‘t do this since we had to assure to get Back to work and school.

All the best, Antje

Thanks for this update Antje! That gives us some confidence that the plans will work out in Spain even without the reservation in our pocket in advance! But sounds horrible with the waiting times! Do you know if there is a special counter to just pick up pre-reserved tickets? I read that you can reserve them via phone 24 h in advance and then just pick them up at the train station. 

Unfortunately, I don‘t know this. When I drew  my waiting number in Seville (Don‘t forget to get one at the machine), I noticed that there were different categories like „departure today“ or „departure later“ but I didn‘t pay attention if there were extra files for pre-reserved tickets. Good luck, anyway!

But hopefully, waiting times are less after the Main season. We travelled in August, but my nephew that travelled in july had to queue much less. The Bad Thing is, that you never know!

And keep in mind that your luggage is controlled before boarding to the AVE fast trains and you are Not allowed to take knifes over a certain length etc.