Porto Travel Forum

Hi everyone,

Does anyone know if there's an simple/direct train or bus that runs between Porto and Bilbao? I've done some research online but can't find much information. Thanks.

http://www.bahn.de/p/view/international/englisch/international_guests.shtml

will give you train times/routes.

No direct train, journey takes around 2 hours.

The Portugese train website www.cp.pt is down at the moment, but you will find fares etc there when it's up again.

Can't find a bus. The express service http://www.rede-expressos.pt/ does not offer this route.

Thanks!

Hi!

I think there's no direct connection between Porto and Bilbao.
What you can do is take the bus to Vitoria, and from there take another bus or train to Bilbao.
The company that does this connection is Internorte (www.internorte.pt).
There are buses at Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, at 1000, from Porto and arrives at Vitoria at 2230.
There's a train that does the same, but leaves from Lisbon (the Sud Express), see in the CP page (www.cp.pt). But I don's know, how it works the connection from Porto.

Greetings,
Helio

Hi,

I can't give you a suggestion but I can tell you that there isn’t a direct train our bus to Bilbao. Only international train that goes to France (I think) and after that to Bilbao.

Sorry couldn’t help more.

Bye

Rui

The other posters are correct - there is no direct train or bus between Porto and Bilbao. One means of doing the journey by train is take the overnight train which runs across from Portugal into Spain and goes to Vitoria and Donostia from where a local train takes you to Bilbao. This train is the only train that runs from Portugal into that area of Spain.

From Porto the connection with this train is made at either Coimbra-B or Pampilhosa and the journey will be of around 12 hours duration.

Alternatively, there are two trains every day from Porto to Vigo where a connection can be made with Spanish trains towards Bilbao but this is also a very long journey on a route with very few trains. Journey time could be as much as 24 hours including waits between trains.

The website of the Eurolines bus system (which offers many routes between many countries) does not even list Portugal as a possible starting point! The Internorte bus from Porto to Vitoria travels through Spain at night which is not at all helpful for connections to Bilbao.

The trouble with Eurolines is that it is just a linking agency for separate companies; it's not a coach/bus firm itself. If no Portugese-based company chooses to link (as presumably has happened), then there will be neither bookings not timetables to/from Portugal on the Eurolines site.

I think there are no direct bus or train rides. However, if you get a bus from Porto to the Basque country, usually in one of those bus rides between Portugal and Northwestern Europe, it's likely that the bus make a quick detour to Bilbau to leave you there. Once I went from Lisbon to Holland by bus, and because there was a passenger in Bilbau, the bus stopped there.

Contact Internorte or Intercentro, the group of companies that operate with Eurolines.

Internorte:NTERNORTE

SEDE - PORTO
Praça da Galiza, 96
Telefone: (00351) 226052420
Email: reserva@internorte.pt

Intercentro:INTERCENTRO/INTERSUL

SEDE – LISBOA
Rua Actor Taborda 55 1ºEsq
1000-007 Lisboa
Telefone: (00351) 21 330 15 00
Fax : 21 315 26 63
Email: intercentro@intercentro.pt


Try also flying from Lisbon. TAP has direct flights to Bilbau. http://www.flytap.com/Portugal/pt/Homepage/


I know there are not many options. International transportation from Portugal is integrated in the Iberian peninsula, and the Spanish usually demand that the trips must be centralized in Madrid, or in Lisbon, or in the neighboring cities of Spain (Vigo). This has caused isolation, dependency and a depressive economic decline to the north of Portugal, with all the support of the EU.