Spain is very popular among Russian tourists. In this country you will find not only a wonderful beach holiday with first-class service, but also an interesting excursion program.
Acquaintance with Spain should begin with the second largest city located on the Mediterranean coast. This is the capital of Catalonia - Barcelona. Moscow daily sends nine flights to the specified city. In addition, planes from St. Petersburg fly to Barcelona. And in the summer, numerous charters from various large cities of Russia leave for the capital of Catalonia . So you should not bind yourself with a ticket to Spain and overpay for tour operators. It is much easier and cheaper to travel on your own.
What you need to do for a trip
Spain is a Schengen country . Accordingly, to travel to Barcelona, you must open a visa. There is no point in contacting travel agencies, as they simply fill out a questionnaire and send documents. There is no guarantee that the visa will be open, although you will pay money for this. It is much better to contact the service centers of Spain, which are located in almost all major cities of Russia. Before applying for a visa, you need to purchase insurance. You should also take care of your place of residence in Barcelona. There are more than a thousand hotels and hostels in this city, so booking a suitable room via the Internet is not difficult. The distance along the route Barcelona-Moscow is a little over three thousand kilometers. Now let's think about how to overcome them.
Direct flights
The distance between the capitals of Russia and Catalonia is significant, and therefore it will take too long, inconvenient and expensive to get by any land transport. It is much better to take direct flights Barcelona-Moscow. The flight in this case will take only about five hours. The figure is approximate, since travel time depends on the workload of the air corridor, weather conditions and the type of aircraft. You can choose an air carrier, because there are five companies operating direct flights to the capital of Catalonia from Moscow airports Sheremetyevo, Vnukovo and Domodedovo. Two of them are Russian. These are Aeroflot and Transaero. The flight time with them will be 4 hours 40 minutes. and 5 hours 30 minutes respectively. You can use the services of carriers Vueling Airlines, Iberia and Air Europa. All of them provide powerful and reliable Boeing 737-400 or Airbus-A320 / A321 aircraft for flights.
Flights
Unfortunately, low-cost flights from Russia fly less often and not in all popular destinations. The cost of tickets on the Barcelona-Moscow route starts from eight thousand rubles (if all fees are taken into account). However, here you can save. The Aviasales website constantly provides lists of great discounts on tickets. If you don’t have a fixed date, you can follow the link "Low Price Calendar". Sometimes for the same flight on different days the price can be half as much.
Helps to save on tickets and early purchase. Connecting flights with a change in Prague or Amsterdam will increase your travel time. However, they turn out to be cheaper than direct ones, since in European cities you can use the services of low-cost air carriers - Izizhet, Germanmanings, Wizzair and others. Thus, they get to the capital of Catalonia for three and a half thousand rubles.
Barcelona-Moscow: charter
Summer is the most convenient time for traveling, because during this period it is not necessary to go to Moscow to catch a plane to Spain. From large Russian cities in this direction many charter flights depart. And you do not need to buy a ticket to a travel agency to become a passenger of such a liner. Typically, the cabin remains unfilled, and companies let the remaining seats on the plane into free sale.
Charters take off from the capital of Russia along with regular flights. Tickets for them are attractive in price. However, charters are considered low priority, they are often delayed, therefore, they arrive late. And while the Barcelona-Moscow charter flight has the same travel time of about five hours, there is a risk that you will be at the departure airport for a long time. But if it is a chic “El Prat de Lobregat” (the so-called air gate of the capital of Catalonia), such a delay will not be a minus, but a plus.
Barcelona-Moscow: time difference
Western Russia and Spain are in different time zones. In addition, in this sunny European country, daylight saving time is underway. Therefore, the determination of the difference depends on the season. In winter (more precisely, from November to the end of March) it is two hours. That is, if it’s noon in Moscow, then another ten in the morning in Barcelona. But in the summer, when the Spaniards move the hands of the alarm clocks on the last Sunday of March, the time difference will be reduced by one hour. In order not to be late for your flight or, on the contrary, not to arrive at the airport too early, it is important to remember one rule: in air tickets departure is indicated in local time.