From Madrid Airport to Huelva: Different ways to travel

Since a lot of people are flying to Madrid, and most of them are asking, I am going to write about the possibilities, prices and offers available from our capital to Huelva.

A) BY TRAIN
Trains in Spain are fast and comfortable, but quite expensive if you don´t book in advance.
To reach Huelva by train, follow these instructions:

- From Barajas Airport take the metro (line 8) untill Nuevos Ministerios. There, change to line 10, and go to Tribunal. Finally, take the line 1 to Atocha (train station).
From Atocha Station, there are a lot of trains everyday to Seville, most of them are AVE trains (high speed, 2h30m).

The standar price it can be up to 75.50€ BUT you can get important DISCOUNTS.
With the European Youth Card, you will get 25% off, and if you book in advance (I would recommend you to book at least 15 days before your trip), you have different fares without the youth card, like Promo or Promo+, where you can get your tickets from 28.70€, and in most of trains from less than 35€.


Check the timetables, prices and offers in http://www.renfe.com/EN/viajeros/index.html

Here, you can see the different prices.

BUT that´s not all, because you also have some direct trains from Madrid to Huelva, so you don´t have to change to another train or bus in Seville.

Trains take around 3h30m (so much faster than the bus, that takes around 7h45m), and prices start from 35.75€ for one person or from only 28.60€ if you are a group of four.

The only problem is that they just offer 2 direct trains per day, a big difference if you compare the number with the 20 daily trains Madrid - Sevilla.

B) BY BUS

There is a low-cost bus company called Socibus, that offer really good prices from Madrid (Airport or Méndez Álvaro Station) and they have several departures everyday.

They offer wi-fi in their buses, but they take 8 hours, and is more uncomfortable than train, but yes, is cheaper.

The one-way ticket cost 25.80€, and you can have discount with your European Youth card, but it´s not possible to get it on internet, where you will also have to pay an internet fee, so the final price will be 28.30€ (my recommendation is: try to get a cheap train if you can, cause you can pay the same or maybe 5-10€ more, but you will save 4-5 hours and will travel more comfortable).

I recommend you to book at least one day before, cause this buses are often fully booked, and you may have to wait at the station for the next one.

To go by bus you have 2 options:

The first one is to buy a ticket from Barajas (airport) to Huelva, and you will go straight to the bus station in town.

The negative thing is that just 2 or 3 buses are departing from Barajas per day, so if the hours are not convinience, you should check the second option, a bus from Madrid (Méndez Álvaro station) to Huelva.

Check prices and schedule here: http://www.socibus.es/index.jsp

To reach the station follow the instructions below:

- From Barajas airport take the metro (line 8) untill Nuevos Ministerios. Once there, take the line 6 till Méndez Álvaro and you will find the station there.

European Youth card to get discount in trains and some buses.

C) By plane.

You can fly from Madrid to Sevilla with Iberia Express from 36€ one way.

The good thing is that you don´t have to leave the airport, but good prices are just available when you book both ways, and are not so easy to find even if you do that, having to pay 40-55€.

Check schedules and prices here: http://www.iberiaexpress.com/en/

The trip will take 1h - 1h15m.

Mobile phone in Spain

Hello again!!

Today, Id like to talk a little bit about the telephone companies in Spain, so you can have an idea.

Here we have expensive companies if you compare with most of European countries, and if you want to call, you have to pay 0.15€ + VAT just to start the conference.

The normal price for a national SMS is also 0.15€ + VAT, and the price per minute depends on the company and the offer.

Fortunately, in the last years we are getting cheaper prices thanks to the new low cost companies.
Here you can find 4 big companies, with their own red, they are Movistar, Vodafone, Orange and Yoigo.
Also you can find a lot of virtual companies like Simyo, Pepephone, Carrefour movil, Lebara, Dia Movil, Amena, Jazztel Movil...

Some good offers right now for prepaid customers are:

* Yoigo: In Huelva, most of erasmus students used to have Yoigo, since they had quite good prices for the clients who use prepaid cards, like 0.08€/min and 0.08€/sms, and you can have unlimited internet on your phone paying 8€ per month. You have several shops in the city, so you don´t have to order the sims online.

* Tuenti Móvil: They offer 1gb of internet + calls for 0.03€/min for 6€ per month, or 1gb of internet and 50 free minutes for 9€ (remember, when you get free minutes, you don´t have to pay the 0.15€ to start the call, otherwise you will always have to pay).
You can buy the sim card in every Movistar shop in the city, or order it online.

* Vodafone: Paying 8€ per month you get 500mb of internet, 20 free sms and 20 free minutes to any national number. If you need more, you can also check the Smart 12 and Smart 16 plans, where you will pay more and get more internet, minutes and sms (You will find a lot of Vodafone shops in Huelva, so you can just go and buy one simcard).

* Másmóvil: You can get good prices, like calls from 3 cent/minute and internet from 1.50€ per month (150mb, and a good price if you don´t use it a lot) till 14.90€ per month (1gb, and quite expensive if you compare with other companies).
You can also find a few shops where you can ask and compare.

* Orange: This company offers, for prepaid customes, their Whale plan, where you get 1gb, 1000 sms and calls for 0.01€/min paying 12€ per month, or another plan where you will pay 2€ per week, having sms and calls for 0.01€ and 100mb of internet every week.
If you don´t need to use internet, you can have calls and sms for 0.01€ paying 1€ per week.

* Simyo. They offer a plan where you can call people from the same company for free, and people from the other companies for 0.05€/min, and they give you 100mb of internet for free.
You don´t have to pay a fee, and you just have to spend 3.99€ per month or they will take it anyway if you don´t do it.
Simyo doesn´t have shops, so you will have to order the sims online.

We also have plans where you pay, for example 25€ and you can use unlimited internet and make unlimited calls with your phone, and some others when you pay 10, 15 or 20€ and you get, for example 350 minutes per month to call and internet in some cases.
Unfortunately, these plans are just available for the people who select the "pay monthly" services.

Prices in Huelva

With this post you can have an idea about the prices for students. Huelva is a cheap city, and find accommodation here its quite easy.

- Room in a shared flat: 140-180€/month
- Bills (water, electricity and gas): 20-40€/month (per person)
- Internet: 8-15€/mes (per person)
- Gym: 15-60€/month
- City Bus: 1.10€ with single ticket, 0.65€ with bonobus or 22€ per month with your student card.
- Rent a bike at the university: 20€/semester (limited number of bikes!!!)
- Entrance to clubs: 0-10€ (usually, 0€).
- Long drinks: 2-7€
- Shots: 0,50-2€
- Beer / Soft drink: 0,80-3€
- Tapas: 0,80-3€
- Cinema ticket: 5.00-9.00€
- Menu at the university: 4.50-5.50€ (including bread, drink and dessert).
- Photocopies: 0.02-0.10€
- Packet of cigarretes: 3.35- 6.00€, depending of the brand.
- Bottle of vodka: 3.50 - 15€
- Litre of milk: 0.55 - 1.20€
- Litre of red wine: 0.65 - 1.20€

That´s all. If you need something else, you can leave a comment ;).

Welcome to Huelva / Bienvenido a Huelva

Hi guys!

If you are reading this article, probably you are going to be an international student in Huelva soon, and probably you didn´t choose our city as your first destination, so you don´t know what´s going on here...

Maybe you choose this city because you want to live by the sea, improve your Spanish skills, or live in a tropical area in the south of Spain that it´s always warm and sunny, so you can go to the beach in December or January.


Well, first thing that you need to know, there is NO beach in Huelva (a lot of people don´t know that), so you need to go to Punta Umbría, Mazagón or another town to see the sea. Huelva has a port, but that´s all.
Fortunately, beaches are pretty close and there is one bus to the beach every hour (sometimes even every 30 minutes), and it cost 1.50€.
If you get the bus card, free of charge, you will pay 1.02€ for the same trip, so you can save some money.

About the Spanish language, maybe Andalussia is not the best part to learn if you just know standard Spanish.
We speak fast, we use different words and we cut the sentences, so sometimes could be difficult for you to understand the people, however, the andalussian Spanish is really nice, and if you can understand it, you will be able to understand everybody in every single part of Spain.
If you just speak English or another language, note that here almost nobody can speak and understand English, so try to learn some basic spanish sentences before your arrival.

Finally, and really important... Huelva IT IS COLD in winter.
Probably your country is colder, since here we don´t have snow, and the temperature is never in minus, but sometimes we have 7-8º and high humidity, so please, bring your jackets with you!.