9/15/2023: Let's take a train to Barcelona. How hard could it be?

Marseilles, France > Narbonne, France > Perpignan, France > Barcelona, Spain > Vilassar de Mar, Spain

Yesterday we were told that it was impossible to get to Barcelona from Marseilles. That angry French lady was almost right.

We started the day with a fresh baguette and strong coffee from the cafe across the street from our Airbnb in Old Port Marseille. We took quick showers and packed up our things, pushing ourselves to be reasonably early for our train ride out of the beautiful city. Fortunately, the cleaning service for the Airbnb arrived hours early and waited patiently for us, inside the room!, to hurry out of the apartment. Bad omen #1. 

We walked briskly across the quad onto the city metro system that took us directly to Marseilles-St-Charles, which was much busier than normal. Bad omen #2. We hurriedly looked for our train number and a small shop to grab to-go lunches and snacks.

More and more people crowded the train station, and louder and louder it got. Then, over the intercom, we could hear delays ringing in one after the other. Bad omen #3.

Ultimately, our train was delayed so much, we would miss our connection to Avignon. That's when I left for the international kiosk. 

A young bubbly woman in the help center informed us there had been massive train delays and cancellations throughout the region - then proceeded to find a unique route to Barcelona that depended on ONE train making it into Marseilles-St-Charles. 

An hour later, no luck. The train was cancelled and we started over. This time, Savanna went to the international kiosk. She took a number and waited her turn. Being the smart woman she is, Savanna negotiated with the staff to get the same young bubbly woman who had helped me. Again, this saint found yet another different and unique way out of the city. 

Success, success. After three hours in the overly crowded and excessively loud train station we were headed out on a comfy train towards Perpignan. Small detail of course, we had to make a 7 minute connection in Narbonne. 

Who could’ve guessed it? We rushed out of the train onto the Narbonne station and into a crowded aisle of people who had been already waiting to make that same connection to Perpignan. We shouldered ourselves through the crowd with our excessively large backpacks and got as close as we could. The train was jampacked, with crowds still waiting to get on, and were eventually shooed away by a crew member as the train departed. 

From there, we re-grouped in the train station cafe with a couple of cocktails and lunch, and thank god we did. 

When the next connection to Perpignan came, we were ready. We camped out with our four backpacks near where the doors to the train had opened nearly 40 minutes earlier.  Elbows out, we readied ourselves to shove our way onto the train. And we did. The doors opened and we crammed in. It was so tight that people moved half step or even quarter-step-smidge at a time. The entryway into the train car was packed with standing travelers and the people in front of us began to cram up the half flight of stairs towards the train car on our right. Slowly we inched up the stairs and into the aisle between two rows of paired seats, all taken. A train crew member, who was stuck in between the entryway and adjacent train car, looked at all of us and shook his head. Didn’t say a word.

Our oversized backpacks provided us with a minimalistic personal bubble in the aisle of the train car, as we came to the conclusion that we would spend the remaining time standing until Perpignan. Crammed like sardines, we made an effort at first to not let our backpacks bang into the sitting passengers as the train rocked back and forth and side to side. Standing with all of the weight, our legs turned to jello and motion sickness began to set in. Out of pure desperation, Savanna squat on the ground, a standing fetal position. A terrible ride indeed.

We arrived in Perpignan bruised and battered, just wishing we could snap our fingers and be in Barcelona. Fortunately, we were on time for the Flix Bus that would take us the rest of the journey. We walked across the train station to the bus stop in the south west corner and waited under the eaves for our bus as it rained. Flix Buses came and left but there was no sight of a charter south to Barce. A bus driver who had seen us waiting, approached us to see where we were going. To our surprise, he said that his charter was headed to Barcelona and offered us the same price as the Flix Bus. Gathering our bags, we headed towards his sterile, unnamed and mostly empty bus. He asked for cash and explained they don’t provide tickets or have a card reader. The stern, bearded man was innocuous, but his driver counterpart had a look in his eyes. With weird feelings in our stomachs, we refused the ride just as quickly as we entertained his offer. 

Exhausted and hungry, we headed back inside the train station. At the ticketing desk, a nice man helped us book our connection to Barcelona. At this point, we didn’t care whether it was Eurorail pass or not. Price was not an issue, we just wanted to get settled. We asked for reserved seats, maybe even first class. We wanted to be on the next train. We wanted it to go directly to Barcelona. And we wanted to be done with the day. 

We were hungry, with time to kill, and found a food court just before it closed down. We ordered burgers, a soda with extra ice, and seized a warm bottle of prosecco from our travel bags with two plastic cups.  

We ate and drank and the staff in the food court didn’t bother us about the unsanctioned alcohol we conspicuously drank, initially pouring ourselves drinks under the table until we just didn’t care anymore. 

Then came in the old American vet, who had heard us speaking English in the food court. He approached us, with a ton of energy, wearing a weathered flight jacket and matching tan wrinkly skin. He made inappropriate joke after inappropriate joke. He spoke about his travels getting to Europe many years earlier and inquired about ours. He definitely had had more to drink than us and was potentially on some more exciting ‘medication.’

And then at that moment, Savanna offered me some hand sanitizer and he put out his hand as well. Savanna glopped some on his hand, he looked at us, smiled, and then snorted it out of his palm like a mound of cocaine. He let out a yelp of excitement and then danced out of the restaurant.

We questioned our lives, packed up our bags, crossed the train station, and sat in our reserved seats for the trip into Barcelona city center. 

We landed in the city center and then caught another metro line up the coast to Vilassar de Mar. From there, we walked 10 minutes on the dimly lit and foggy boardwalk to our Airbnb. It was LATE. Not a soul to be seen outside. 12 hours later. We finally made it. 

~J