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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.
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Jan 25, 2023 21:55
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| # ? Apr 26, 2024 00:41 |
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I realise now it's spelled Hoyuelos so we are off to a cracking start lol
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Jan 25, 2023 22:04
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Chewbecca posted:I am seeking the advice of goons for part of a trip I am taking in June/July this year to Europe. 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.
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Jan 26, 2023 07:20
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Haven't been to that part of Spain but google doesn't seem to know of any bus connections from Madrid. I think your plan is a good approach unless someone can just pick you up or something. Even then it would be good to have your own transportation in a village like that in case you want to go on a trip. Renting a car shouldn't be a problem. If you go with a super cheap company they'll probably try really hard to upsell you on insurance and other crap and then scrutinize every scratch, but a multinational chain will be the same as everywhere.
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Jan 26, 2023 13:52
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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. 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  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)
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Jan 26, 2023 20:17
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Has anyone driven from Madrid to Segovia(ish) and can advise on the roads? The A6 looks easy enough (maybe? Possibly?)
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Jan 26, 2023 20:19
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Driving on the other side is definitely weird but something you adjust to very quickly. I think it mainly depends on how comfortable you're driving in big cities at home.You could maybe go to the airport and get a car there, which would put you right on the highway. Or take another train to Segovia. As for the A6, I dunno, looks fine to me  Google suggests as an alternative taking M-601 for the last part of the trip, which goes through some hills and looks more pleasant.
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Jan 26, 2023 20:41
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I've driven from Madrid to Segovia. Spanish driving is, surprisingly, for the most part very well organized and not "Mediterranean". Valencia has some freaky 7 lane roundabouts but I don't remember Madrid having anything odd at all. Also look at what day of the week and what time of day you are renting the car. If it's like, a Sunday afternoon, then whatever. If it's for a wedding, then I guess that means you're arriving on Friday which means it could be pretty busy. However traffic really isn't chaotic in Spain, it's not like Italy. It certainly can get crowded and traffic jammy. I've driven back and forth on left/right side a bunch, and the biggest problem is when you're somewhere with no traffic, since you might default to driving on the wrong side of the road on a lonely 2-lane highway. Make sure 1000% that you have someone double-checking you for the first few hours. I have found myself twice driving on the wrong side of the road after switching back and forth. One time I even pulled over and waited until another car came because I was so unsure of whether left was right, or left was wrong. The other time I was just driving along all happy until I noticed an oncoming car in "my" lane. In traffic it's a non-issue, unless you're the first in lane to turn left and gently caress it up, which is also something I did immediately after picking up a rental car in Namibia. Once you're on a main highway, it is trivial, you just have to like... keep the wheel straight. But yeah anyway, cheapest & fastest: rent the car in Barcelona Easiest: train to Madrid, rent a car near the train station Least stressful, probably: train to Segovia, rent the car there Alternate solution: find someone else going to the wedding arriving at the same time as you, carpool with them Alternate alternate solution: take a taxi from Segovia, find someone who takes you back to civilization after the wedding (normally pretty easy!) I realize after writing my anecdotes of messing up left turns and messing up which side of the road I'm driving on is not like a glowing recommendation of self-drive. Just uh... make sure not to do that on a highway onramp, or at night. During the daytime I was able to figure out that I had a car directly in my oncoming lane and change in plenty of time.
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Jan 26, 2023 20:58
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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!!!
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Jan 26, 2023 21:34
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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)
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Jan 26, 2023 21:36
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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. Chewbecca posted: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) 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. Saladman fucked around with this message at 23:12 on Jan 26, 2023 |
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Jan 26, 2023 22:53
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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. I'm Australian    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:
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
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Jan 27, 2023 22:18
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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.
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Feb 5, 2023 15:24
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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
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Feb 5, 2023 18:54
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| # ? Apr 26, 2024 00:41 |
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I have rented cars in Spain many times, including in downtown Madrid. Honestly, I'd rather drive there than in Toronto where I live. I would really recommend this as it has got to be by far the most straightforward option. I think the last time I rented in Madrid it was from Europcar near one of the main train stations. From there it was really straightforward to get to the highway and get out of town. I recognize the "driving on the other side" thing sounds a bit scary, but I have done it in Australia and the UK a bunch and you get used to it really fast. Just make sure to get an automatic.
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Feb 16, 2023 15:59
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