Travelling by Train

The first time we went to this area was a little bit further to the north, during the summer holidays of 2021. We wanted to visit Araia, because Tibor figured out that we could reach it in one day by train. We were planning to do that in May 2020 when Covid threw our plans in the water. What we knew then, to be able to reach it in one day, we needed to walk from Hendaye station to Irun station (so from France to Spain), about a 30 minutes walk. That first time we found out that there was also a metro like train running from Hendaye to Irun and San Sebastian.

Now we didn’t buy an abandoned village close to Araia, but a little further south. The closest station is 30 km from Bárcena, that is not reachable in one day by public transport from the Netherlands, because trains only stop there 3 times a day. It is possible to reach Miranda de Ebro or maybe even better, go to Vitoria / Gasteiz, because you can rent a car there.

These are the steps you have to take to get there by train (from Amsterdam cs):

take thalys to station Paris gare du Nord (3 hours 20 min)
walk (1 hour 15 min) to Paris gare Montparnasse or take the metro (0.5 hours)
take the TGV to Hendaye (4 hours 40 min)
take the Euskotren to San Sebastian (stop Amara Donostia, 35 min) and walk 10 minutes to San Sebastian train station.
take the train to Vitoria / Gasteiz (1.5 hours)

In Vitoria Gasteiz we rented a car several times via the app Amovens (https://amovens.com), where you can rent a car from private persons. It’s about an hour drive from Vitoria

Another option is to get off the TGV half an hour before Hendaye, in Biarritz and rent a car there. From there it is 2.5 hours driving to Bárcena.

In summer it is also possible to take the night train from Paris to Hendaye

The trip is quite fast untill you reach the border of Spain.

Luckily we have some good news there:.

Renfe and Adif are working on a high speed line between Hendaye and Madrid (via San Sebastian, Vitoria/Gasteiz and Burgos) .

Information about this on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basque_Y

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The first week of work

After the transaction we had time to think about what we could do in the village, as now we are the owners. The next option for us to go to Spain was in the autumn holidays. Earlier on we tried to combine it with Spanish classes for the kids, but we couldn’t arrange extra free time from school, so we had to stick to the one week of school vacation. We thought about starting at one of the houses which is in the relative good condition, like getting a door, so we could close it and store stuff there. But we had no electricity or tools as we had no space to keep stuff safe. So we were kind of stuck in a chicken and egg problem. To get out of this we set up a plan to get a container which we could lock. But that would not be there for this vacation. Then Maaike’s parents asked: “Would it be of any use if we were there with some tools to clear away the burrs, bushes and so on?” Of course that would be great! We were happy that they were enthusiastic and by itself there was a plan to do ...

Todo

We are looking forward to our next vacation in August. We have a substantial list of things we can do and are now busy preparing everything for it. We have made a list of all the things we need to prepare based on this list of things we want to do: WC/shower hut - an outdoor space made of clay and stone as a toilet and shower Creating paths - many walking paths are difficult to traverse and need to be cleared Building a clay wall - to practice, we want to build a clay wall Building a stone wall - to practice, we want to build a stone wall Making stairs - there needs to be a staircase to get from the container to the romantic forest Planting trees - there are 120 Paulownia trees that need to be planted Connecting solar panels - we want to have 10 solar panels on the container and another 8 by our house Building a room - in the main house and our house, we can build a room Making an outdoor kitchen - along the container, an outdoor kitchen needs to be made Clearing stones ...

Never alone in an abandoned village

One might expect that being in an abandoned village will be lonely. But a part from Carlos and all the people who we knew were going to visit us, everyday there were people visiting the village. let's start with the people we knew were going to visit us in order of appearance. Mirthe, Rick and Vos who came visiting with their camper to find out if they want to live in Bárcena and to help us some days. They are now in the process of preparing to move to Bárcena so it seems that the answer is yes! Maaike's Brother Teun, his wife Marieke and daughter Sarah , who were there for 2 weeks and took a lot of trips with the kids and cooked for us almost every day! But most important: they really liked being there, so hopefully they will come often when we live there. As an ultra runner Teun explored the area by running and cycling. For example he explored routes to Lences and found three different ones. Tibor's daughter Fiona , who helped a lot with ...

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