Euro insider’s tips for San Sebastian goers
A German friend of mine has shared some advice on how to save money on the trip to WMA worlds in Spain. Anyone else who happens upon some cheap fares or lodging is welcome (and encouraged!) to add their findings/secrets via the comment function of this blog.
Here’s what my friend sayeth:
I’ve seen your Blog about San Sebastian. The prices (and the value of the $) are a serious problem. btw 2 years ago it was the same for the Europeans at Carolina (Puerto Rico).
Some advice for you:
US-citizens and other international competitors should use the Spanish Iberia or French Air France to get into Europe. I think using the connecting flights of these airlines to Bilbao, San Sebastian (?, it’s just a very small airport) or Biarritz/Bayonne (F) is the cheapest way to go to the WC. Now we have many cheap airlines in Europe, but normally they use only small airports.
The extracheap Irish Ryanair (ryanair.com) has a conncetion from London-Stansted to Biarritz/Bayonne once a day. But London-Stansted is not London-Heathrow International (like Frankfurt-Hahn – also a Ryanair-Airport – is not Frankfurt (Main) International – there is a distance of 90-120 min. by bus/car) and passengers have to use a rerntal car for two hours or a not so cheap bus between Heathrow and the center of London (e.g. Victoria station) and another bus to the outside Stansted; if you arrive in Frankfurt it’s nearly the same.
IMHO take an Iberia or Air France flight via Madrid or Paris – phenomenal stopover cities, (probably Lufthansa via Frankfurt to Bilbao; for a stopover the Rhine area is 30 in away – I’m just thinking on our favorite German hotel “Zum Krug” at Hattenheim.
Accomodations in France are nearby (just 25 miles to San Sebastian Stadium) and shall be an alternative. For accomodation try expedia.com or the website of Accor.com which is a major French Hotelgroup. E.g. at Bayonne there are 4 hotels of this group in 4 categories. Ok, Formula1 or Etap have a poor standard, but they are all clean&correct&cheap (rates app. 30 Euros(doubleroom/night, IBIS is a little bit better but app. 60 Euros).
Another IBIS-Hotel is situated at Irun (spanish or basque bordercity and 15 miles from San Sebastian).
If you rent a car, take the lowest class A. Rental cars are cheap in Spain. Try to get a small Citroen car which normally has an air condition which opther small cars don’t have; be careful most of the small cars don’t are automatic cars! Nevertheless rental cars are cheap in Spain. No idea how much they are in France.
At all: Europe2005 isn’t cheap as Carolina wasn’ t two years ago.
I hope we’ll have a worldclass meeting at San Sebastian, that means _World_championships and not only international championships with many Europeans and a few rich people from overseas…
