Travel from Barcelona to Huyelos in one day

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Tourism & Travel > Travel from Barcelona to Huyelos in one day

Chewbecca: Feb 13, 2005; Just chillin' : )

I am seeking the advice of goons for part of a trip I am taking in June/July this year to Europe.

We are needing to travel from Barcelona to Huyelos.

My current thinking is that we take the fast train from Barcelona to Madrid, then hire a car to drive to Huyelos. This would be useful as we are then returning to Madrid after 2 nights.

Has anyone hired a car in Madrid and driven to Huyelos or the Segovia area? Are there better ways of doing this? Hiring a car always gives me the heeby jeebies with the horror stories but it can't always be horrible, right?

All perspectives welcomed.

# ¿ Jan 25, 2023 21:55

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# ¿ May 11, 2024 07:52

Chewbecca: Feb 13, 2005; Just chillin' : )

I realise now it's spelled Hoyuelos so we are off to a cracking start lol

# ¿ Jan 25, 2023 22:04

Chewbecca: Feb 13, 2005; Just chillin' : )

Saladman posted:

Your current thinking is right. If you’re really worried about driving you could probably pick up and drop off from Segovia instead of Madrid. Hoyuelos looks like some tiny village so while you could definitely get there by taxi from Segovia, you’d be trapped in Hoyuelos afterwards. There may be a bus but even if so it probably runs like 4x/day. It will be cheaper if you get the car in Barcelona, since then you don’t have to get two tickets to Segovia.

Otoh if you’re going to some tiny forgotten village in the middle of nowhere for two nights and you don’t like driving and aren’t doing a Tiny Villages Roadtrip, I imagine you’re doing that because you know someone there, who presumably can figure out all these arrangements for you. If you don’t know anyone there, then that is a strange spot to book accommodation.

Thanks friend!

I am attending a wedding there, and it's the person whose wedding it is that suggested the "train from Barcelona to Madrid > hire car from Madrid to Hoyuelos" route. She doesn't live there and isn't Spanish but her partner is (although not from that specific area)

What has me kinda spooked is the idea of driving in the city, like I have been looking at rental car places that look like they are close to the A6 but also on a train or tube line (so I can get from the train line from Barcelona) but google street view looks wild - very busy, multi lane and whatever. Also driving on (for me) the "wrong" side of the road :stonklol:

This area has a bunch, but boy howdy

My friend (whose wedding it is) didn't seem to know for sure what stop would be good to hire from, this was more a 'thinking out loud' thing - although she definitely suggested a hire car for Hoyuelos cos its out the middle of nowhere lol

Maybe you're right and a hire car from Segovia would be an option (and a less hectic one)

# ¿ Jan 26, 2023 20:17

Chewbecca: Feb 13, 2005; Just chillin' : )

Has anyone driven from Madrid to Segovia(ish) and can advise on the roads? The A6 looks easy enough (maybe? Possibly?)

# ¿ Jan 26, 2023 20:19

Chewbecca: Feb 13, 2005; Just chillin' : )

Yeah its arriving on a friday arvo from Barcelona into Madrid lol.

Another factor is we are returning to Madrid after Segovia/Hoyuelos, potentially late afternoon/early evening on Sunday so in that sense a car would be convenient (but again major car anxiety so uhhh)

Segovia seems relatively easy to get into amd out of, Hoyuelos is the complicator here

Looking at the map of Madrid I am trying to find a car hire place that is a) near the freeway (avoiding a bunch of city driving), b) on a train or tube line, c) an international brand like hertz or avis. Its not as easy as it sounds!!!

# ¿ Jan 26, 2023 21:34

Chewbecca: Feb 13, 2005; Just chillin' : )

Unless I am mistaken, driving from Barcelona into Hoyuelos is like a 7.5 hour drive, whereas the fast train takes it down to only a 90ish minute drive from Madrid (witn tolls)

# ¿ Jan 26, 2023 21:36

Chewbecca: Feb 13, 2005; Just chillin' : )

Saladman posted:

Do you drive in the UK? Does the person you're going with ever drive? If you never drive in the UK and have major anxiety about it, then imho go to Segovia, take a taxi from there to Hoyuelos, and find someone at the wedding who can take you two back to Segovia or even Madrid on Sunday. We had our wedding in a place with mediocre public transport, and people self-organized pretty easily, even for those people who didn't know anyone else. I'm sure your hosts can tell you who is getting in fro where on what day, and you could probably even carpool from Madrid.

If you take the train from Barcelona to Madrid, then drive from there, yeah you're right it's way faster, I guess around 4.5 hours of total travel time all-inclusive. I was thinking for getting to Segovia and renting from there. I'm curious what it actually is so I looked into it: it's a 2.5 hour train from Barcelona to Madrid, then you have to change from Atocha station to Chamartin station which maybe takes 45 minutes from train-door to train-door, then it's like 30 minutes to Segovia, and it looks like that train runs roughly every hour so let's assume you are there half an hour in advance since train tickets in Spain are for specific trains, so you don't want to miss it. So yeah you could do it somewhat faster by train: 2.5 hours to Madrid, 1.25 hours to change station & get in the new train, then .5 hours to get to Segovia. So ~4.5 hours to Segovia station if everything goes reasonably smoothly (which is likely; trains in Spain are good), then another 20-30 minutes to get into actual Segovia and get to a rental car agency, then another 40 minute drive to Hoyuelos, so let's say 6 hours -- so even in that case, quite a bit faster than driving all the way from Barcelona.

If you do take the train to Segovia: its train station is in the middle of nowhere like 5 km away from the city, in some fields. It is the Segovia-Guiomar train station. The station that's actually in Segovia has like 4 trains a day and they're super slow. We got confused by that when my wife had to leave before I did with the car.

E: For lower-stress places to pick up in Madrid, the Thrifty or National rental offices at Plaza de España look like the easiest. Atocha of course would be more convenient, but if it's more stressful then it's not like it's that hard to get to Plaza de España. I just looked around on Streetview and it looks like they made that area way, way more straightforward to drive in sometime between 2015 and 2022. Looks like it got super redone in early 2022. If you streetview around it, make sure you're not looking at any 2015 dates, as they got rid of a complicated roundabout there and simplified the roads a lot. I've only driven through Madrid a couple times but both times (2013 and 2015? been a while) but both times I was surprised that it's one of the least complicated major European cities to drive in.

I'm Australian :australia:

yeah I drive but I am not confident in city driving on account of being a wuss bag lol. I will be travelling with 2 others which makes car pooling more challenging, but one of them is okay with driving as an option.

Yeah the Segovia train station thing is a pain. When googling I realised it wasn't actually in Segovia (as you note).

It's feeling like it's, of course, all doable via public transport, but my current thinking is:

Barcelona to Madrid (fast train)
internal tube to Plaza De Espana
rental car (eep) to Hoyuelos

Especially with 3 people, it may be more cost effective

I did of course notice the massive roundabout that you'd appear to have to drive through from Plaza De Espana but I think its like....multilayered? As in we drive straight through? Will have another look today

# ¿ Jan 27, 2023 22:18

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# ¿ May 11, 2024 07:52

Chewbecca: Feb 13, 2005; Just chillin' : )

JohnCompany posted:

If you'd rather avoid city driving altogether, it's a half hour train from Atocha, where your high speed train will get in, to Barajas Airport, which is already on the outskirts of town, albeit on the northeast instead of northwest.

Is Atocha where it comes into in Madrid? Amd then can get a rental car from Barajas? Cheer, will look into it

# ¿ Feb 5, 2023 18:54

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