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Eurohop Hop-on-Hop-off Bus Travel in Spain

About.com Rating four out of Five

By Damian Corrigan, About.com

The guides on the Eurohop tour

Image: Eurohop

The Bottom Line

For those who can't decide between independent travel and organized tours, Eurohop is the perfect compromise: a budget package that is cheaper than Eurail and Inter Rail train passes and which offers quick travel to Spain and Portugal's biggest cities, with free tours of some of the smaller cities in Spain thrown into the bargain.
Pros
  • The Eurohop bus travels to Spain's biggest and most popular cities
  • The service is much cheaper than the Eurail train passes
  • Free tours of Toledo, Cordoba, Zaragoza & Salamanca
  • Discounts on other services in each city offered on the bus
  • Pick-ups from central points in each city
Cons
  • You can only travel clockwise around the route.
  • Stops in Salamanca and Zaragoza are very short (though you are free to stay if you want)
  • Bus only departs from each city every other day
  • Some journeys are very long - Lisbon to Madrid takes a whole day!

Description

  • Eurohop Bus Network
  • Hop-on-hop-off bus service for travel in Spain and Portugal.
  • Four itineraries featuring Spain's most important cities (and a couple in Portugal too). You can join the route at any point.
  • Itinerary 1: Barcelona, Valencia, Madrid, Zaragoza.
  • Itinerary 2: Lisbon, Salamanca, Madrid, Zaragoza & Barcelona.
  • Itinerary 3: Madrid, Toledo, Granada, Cordoba & Seville.
  • Itinerary 4: Barcelona, Valencia, Madrid, Toledo, Granada, Cordoba, Seville, Lagos, Lisbon, Salamanca, Madrid & Zaragoza
  • Flexibility to select elements of each itinerary and to change your departure dates whenever you want.
  • Free tours of Toledo, Cordoba, Salamanca and Zaragoza.

Guide Review - Eurohop Hop-on-Hop-off Bus Travel in Spain

I've always disliked taking the train in Spain. It is always far too expensive in comparison with the bus (and the Eurail passes don't make it much better) and often takes longer (see this bus and train travel comparison for more on this subject). But I have to admit to trains usually being a lot easier to book, as the bus network in Spain is fragmented and difficult to understand. But then along came Eurohop...

Eurohop offers a flexible service which allows you to choose between two extended itineraries that take you around the best bits of Spain and Portugal. You can take one or both tours or select the elements that appeal to you most.

On each bus there is an English-speaking guide who will tell you what to expect in each city. With the bus starting in one city and passing through a second before ending in a third, a free tour of the middle city is thrown into the package where time permits (in Toledo, Cordoba, Salamanca and Zaragoza). This makes some routes, such as the Madrid-Toledo-Granada route, excellent value for money - travel from Madrid to Granada with a free tour of Toledo, all for less than the price of a train ticket.

The catch? The bus only departs from each city every two days and you can only travel clockwise around the route. But apart from that, you have complete freedom over when you travel. Your pass lasts the whole summer (unlike the rail passes, which restrict you to a short period of travel).

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