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Getting here and getting around |
Making the most of your time |
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Just the Perpignan-Quillan route at the moment | Guidebooks |
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To/From Barcelona |
Directions between Barcelona and Perpignan | |||||
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Mas Camps Hotel |
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Basically because the signs are absolutely dreadful and if you miss one of the 12 separate turns on the way to the airport it can easily take two hours to get back onto the route.
This is the easiest route but it's not always easy to follow in the rush hour, especially if you're coming off a late flight.
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When you leave the airport to pick up your hire car from the car park just opposite, you cross a wide road directly in front of the terminal building. To get to France, you turn left as you exit the car park, taking you onto the road that you'll just have crossed. The dozen or so lanes on that road narrow down to just three as you turn left at the end of the terminal buildings. You need to be in one of the two rightmost lanes. As the airport is south of Barcelona, you head towards Barcelona first. |
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About 1km later, you'll come across this sign. Take the direction for Barcelona (NOT Zona Franca, which is an industrial estate within Barcelona). |
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Another 3.5 km further on, you will reach this sign. If the traffic has been relatively light, you should take the route on the left as it's a lot shorter than the other option. Going along this is relatively simple and takes you through a long series of bridges and tunnels right through the centre of Barcelona. However, do make sure that the traffic is relatively light: if it isn't you can find yourself stuck in a traffic jam. Just follow the signs to Girona. If the traffic is a little heavier, or you'd prefer a more scenic route, take the middle route. This is a much longer route as it takes you around the western edge of Barcelona but is generally much quicker as it avoids the traffic jams in the city. The remainder of the directions are for this route as it's a little more complicated. |
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Continue towards Girona at this point ie follow the sign on the left. |
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At this point you continue on towards Girona, taking you onto the AP-7. This motorway becomes the A9 in France and takes you directly to Perpignan. The tolls cost around 14€; Visa and Mastercard are accepted, Visa Electron, Maestro and American Express aren't (all three are accepted on the Spanish sections of the motorway). |
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Perpignan has two exits from the A9: Perpignan Sud is the best for central Perpignan, Perpignan Nord for the airport. |
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| Taking the Perpignan Nord exit brings you out here. |
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Please note that if you will reach France after around 8pm, you will need to eat in Spain as French restaurants stop serving around 8.30pm. Also, French petrol stations close around 7pm on Saturday and don't reopen until 8am on Monday morning (the 24/7 stations only work with French credit cards). |
If you take the A9 motorway in France this takes you directly to Barcelona in around 90 minutes. It takes around 40 minutes more to get to the airport which is on the coast south of the city.
| You enter the A9 motorway at this point. So long as you take the left hand direction, you can't go wrong until you get closer to Barcelona. |
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If you're heading for Girona (often called Barcelona airport by Ryanair), you leave at this exit. There's usually not much traffic on this route (except for the border crossing). In a reversal of the usual way of things, the automated car park payment machines in the airport don't take French credit cards.
AP-7, km70 |
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Typical tollbooth. However, this is a useful reference point
for the directions which follow. The charge to this point
from France is about 12€; Amex, Mastercard, Maestro, Visa,
Visa Electon are accepted.
AP-7, km128; tollbooth+0km |
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You'll see this sign around 30km north of Barcelona. Move over into one of the two left lanes of the motorway. The tollbooth is about 10 minutes after this point.
AP-7, km135; tollbooth+6km |
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This is your last chance to get petrol before reaching the airport. As car hire companies charge around 20€ to fill your tank plus the cost of the petrol, it's best to topup here. There's another tollbooth about 1km before this point (about 2€).
tollbooth+14km |
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The second turn. Chances are you'll be in the right hand lane anyway.
tollbooth+18.5km |
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As you turn the corner after the sign above, the road opens out, leaving you with three lanes to your right. You need to move over one lane quite quickly at this point as the next turn isn't far off and the traffic is often quite heavy here. Don't move over more than one lane as you'll find yourself on the off-ramp into central Barcelona (if this happens, head towards Zona Franca until you see the signs for the airport).
tollboth+21km |
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Hopefully you'll manage to get over enough lanes to take this turn.
tollbooth+24km |
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Then it's over to the left.
tollbooth+33km |
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From here you travel through a long series of tunnels in which the traffic is almost always very heavy. Keep on the main road ie don't take any of the turnoffs. As confirmation that you are still on the right road, keep an eye out for the submarine on top of one of the bridges you go under (at tollbooth+29km).
tollbooth+35km |
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Finally the road opens out (tollbooth+35km)and you take this turn. There is very little warning before this turn. This is around 30km from the tollbooth.
tollbooth+37km |
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At last!
tollbooth+43km |
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If you are leaving off a hire car, head for area A. |
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Design by Crystal Consultancy. Copyright © 2005-2006 John Arnold Stewart. Last revised: July 27, 2006. |