Hubs, trains, buses and Gaudi

With Summer approaching and holiday plans being made, keep an eye on the ever-growing number of offers of Ryanair, Europe´s third largest airline. Ryanair operates or will operate from June/July 2009 flights to Reus - the heart of the Costa Dorada and the Tarragona province and the company´s fifth hub in Spain - from a wide range of places: Beauvais (Paris), Dublin, Birmingham, Glasgow, Bournemouth, Luton (London), Bristol, Liverpool, East Midlands (Nottingham), Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Memmingen (Munich), Charleroi (Brussels), Eindhoven, Poznan (Poland), Alghero (Sardinia), Nador (Melilla) and Marrakech. From Reus one can now also fly with Ryanair to a range of destinations within Spain: Santander, Santiago de Compostela, Sevilla and Palma de Mallorca. Taking into account the extra charges, Ryanair still comes out cheapest. Public transport is by bus: Barcelona takes 90 minutes and there are also buses to and from nearby La Pineda-Salou-Cambrils or to and from the train & busstations of Reus - Antoni Gaudí´s birthplace - which will connect you by train to destinations in the province and beyond (for bus connections check out the following website: www.spanish-airport-guide.com/aeropuertos/aeropuerto-de-reus-autobuses.html).

The future looks brighter from 2012, though: then there will the long-awaited train station connecting Reus airport with all the major cities along the Mediterranean ´corridor´ and, even more important, with the AVE Camp de Tarragona station (the Spanish equivalent of the French TGV) that will bring you in half an hour to Lleida or Barcelona (who knows if by then they will still be tunnelling through Barcelona and underneath Gaudí´s Sagrada Família - itself set to be completed by 2026! - to reach the Costa Brava and Girona) or in two hours and a half to Madrid.