We arrive in Madrid on May 1st (why do we always choose International Labor Day to begin our travels?). In 2007 we took a very pleasant train ride from Madrid to Pamplona. We hope to do the same to Leon this time and then we'll take a bus to Sarria, which is proving to be more complicated (sort of like the one bus a day - at 5 pm - from Pamplona to Roncesvalles).
Renfe offers Alvia and Intercity trains from Madrid's Charmartin station to Leon that take about 3 hours. The Alvia costs 45.30€ and the Intercity 37€. We are scheduled to arrive in Madrid at 8:20 am but it is on US Airways so that could mean 11:20 am. We'll have to get from the Barajas airport to the Charmartin train station so that might be another hour. There are trains at: 10:30, 11:05, 14:40, 17:05, 19:00, 20:30. Needless to say, we should have a hotel reservation in Leon since it is a holiday. And we better make train reservations as well, perhaps on
RailEurope.com.
Then to get to Sarria, it appears we will have to take a bus from Leon to Lugo on
ALSA, and then take a different bus company,
MonBus, from Lugo to Sarria. There are two nonstop buses from Leon to Lugo that appear to run every day: 10:15 am (arriving at 13:30) and 16:30 pm (arriving at 20:15pm). Obviously we would take the morning bus. The fare is 17.54€ apiece.
The trip from Lugo to Sarria is much shorter, only 35 minutes, and there are 13 buses a day on weekdays. There are buses at 13:45, 14:45, 15:20, 17:30, 18:35 (I might as well get used to that 24 hour clock). So if everything ran on schedule, we could take the 10:15 bus from Leon to Lugo and then the 13:45 bus to Sarria, and if we missed that there's the 14:45 bus. However, if we went on Sunday, there are fewer buses: if we missed the 13:45 bus, we'd have to wait until 18:35 for the next one. The fare is 3.70€ apiece. Monbus doesn't seem to service Leon, although it goes to Madrid, Barcelona, Burgos and many other cities.
How much did we plan ahead in 2007? I know we bought our train tickets online and then were able to change them to an earlier train at the station. But that wasn't May 1st.
