Barcelona - Getting to BCN

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Barcelona

The Mediterranean Sea nudges the coast of the city of Barcelona, while the Collserola ridge (part of the Serralada Litoral) borders the west of the city, with pine and oak woodland, fields and meadows, as well as wetland vegetation. The Catalan capital, 120 kilometres south of the Pyrenees, has a surface area of 192,2 square kilometres and is located on a plain bordered by two rivers. The promontory of Montjuïc is also by the coast, rising to a height of 191.7 metres. The climate in Barcelona is typically Mediterranean: Summers are hot and humid, winters mild, and most of the rainfall is in spring and autumn. The average annual temperature is 18,3 degrees Celsius.

 
 
 

Barcelona is worldwide well-know by the warm climate, by the architecture of Gaudi -with its organic shapes and colorful mosaics-, by its football team BARÇA and its Mediterranean style of life. But you also could find a range of museums and cultural attractions, up to five public Universities, a large number of research institutions/equipments -including top-level R&D centers, as Yahoo Labs! or the ALBA synchrotron, close to UAB Campus- and one of the most powerful supercomputers in Europe, the BSC's “MareNostrum” (we can offer a guided tour for ESSA'14 conference members). Of course, if you like “tapas” Barcelona is one of the best places to take some samples of excellent bar-food. And don't forget your swimming clothes!

Currency

The Spanish currency is the Euro (EUR). To see the currency converter click here.

Entering Spain

EU citizens have no legal formalities to complete before coming to Spain. Non-EU citizens coming for a period of one week have no legal formalities to do before coming to Spain as well.
For more information, please address to the “International Welcome Point-IWP”:

Address: Campus Bellaterra, Plaça Cívica, Tel. + 34 93 581 22 10, Fax + 34 93 586 80 25

E-mail: international.welcome.point@uab.cat

Office hours: 9:30am to 7pm. - Wednesdays 9:30am to 3pm, July & August 9.30am to 3pm
 

Getting to Barcelona

Barcelona is well communicated with other cities of Spain and other countries. You can go by train, plane, car, bus or boat.

By plane

There is one international airport in Barcelona called “Barcelona-El Prat” and it is 16km far away from the city. In order to be well communicated, there are buses every 10 minutes to the city of Barcelona called Aerobus (A1 and A2). These services started at 6am and finishes at 1am every day (every night you have the Nitbus (N17) just in case), this trip to Barcelona takes about 35 min.

There are daily connections by train as well, every 30 min. you could take a train to the centre of Barcelona: the line 2 stopping at “Passeig de Gràcia” station.

You can arrive also to another airports next to Barcelona, with frequent low cost services:

  • The Airport of Girona-Costa Brava (GRO), connected to the city by a direct bus called BarcelonaBus. (95 Km, 1 hour trip)
  • The Airport of Reus (REU) also connected by direct bus called Igualadina.(110 Km, 1:15 hours trip)
  • The Airport of Lleida-Alguaire (ILD) connected by train and bus.(180 Km, 2:30 hours trip)

 

By train

Barcelona has a lot of train stations and it has facilities to go from another cities to the centre of the city of Barcelona.

The Station “Barcelona Sants” is the main railway station and it serves regional, national and international regular and high-speed trains.

The “Estació de França” Station has regional and national trains.

And finally, the Stations “Passeig de Gràcia” and “Plaça Catalunya” has just regional trains.They are in the centre of Barcelona.

 

The schedule of the trains can be found here.

By bus

The buses main station of Barcelona is the Station “Barcelona Nord” with connections to another cities of Spain and Europe.

 

For more information and the schedule of the buses please click here.

By car

Barcelona is located 150km from the border of France.The French motorway network connects to the AP-7, N-II and C-32 Barcelona motorway.

If you are entering from the rest of Spain, from the south you have the AP-7 or C-32.

To enter to the city you have ring roads, Avinguda Meridinda and Avinguda Diagonal that connect with the whole city.

 

By boat

The port of Barcelona has services to the Balearic Islands with daily ferries and to the main Mediterranean ports, where there is also a direct service to the port of Genoa, Rome and Algiers.

For more information click here.