The II International Symposium
Cultural Transfers of the American West: Beyond Borders will take place on October 2017. From the 9th to the 10th of that month we
would be delighted if you had a chance to come to Vitoria-Gasteiz and
participate in our symposium. For those of you who are presenting a paper or
those of you who are planning to come, we want to give you some tips so that
you can start planning your trip.
In what follows, you will find
information on how to get to Vitoria-Gasteiz and, if needed, where to stay. If
you have any further inquiry, don't hesitate to ask. You can either use the
email address for the symposium (also, angel.chaparro@ehu.eus) or just write
your comment here.
How to Get
to Vitoria-Gasteiz
Vitoria-Gasteiz (Vitoria is
Spanish, Gasteiz is Basque) is the capital city of the autonomous community of
the Basque Country in northeastern Spain. If you wish to know more about it you
can visit any of the following links: wikipedia, the
official website of the city council or the BasqueCountry
tourist office website.
Vitoria-Gasteiz has very good
train connections. If you are train traveling lover, you may want to check the RENFEwebsite (national railway company) and see if train traveling is your best option
to come to Vitoria-Gasteiz. If you choose to fly, you will need to use more
than one means of transport because you can’t make it right to Vitoria-Gasteiz
by plane. Vitoria-Gasteiz has its own airport but this is only use for freight
transport at the moment. You can go for any of the two following travel plans
if you are choosing this travel option:
From Bilbao
If you are flying, probably,
the best (meaning cheapest) way to get to Vitoria-Gasteiz is to fly to Bilbao InternationalAirport. This is the nearest airport with international connections. If you are
flying overseas then you’ll probably have to travel in two steps, via Paris,
Frankfurt, Madrid or London. It is also worth mentioning that there are some
low-fare companies operating to and from Bilbao (Easyjet, Air Berlin, Vueling…)
If you feel like coming right
to Vitoria-Gasteiz after you landed in Bilbao, you’ll need to go first to
Termibus, Bilbao’s main bus station. There, you’ll be able to catch a bus to
Vitoria-Gasteiz. But before that, you need to come from Bilbao International
Airport to the city center, which is about half an hour away from the airport. You
can easily catch a shuttle bus from the one and only bus stop that you’ll find
outside arrivals. The ticket is cheap and you pay directly at the bus. They
come every 20-30 minutes and the ride only takes about 20-25 minutes. You have
to stay on the bus until the last stop in Bilbao, which is that of Termibus.
You can check the schedules here. The only other way to get from the Airport to Termibus would be to take a
taxi (a bit faster, but much more expensive, around 20-30 euros).
Once in Termibus, you can take
a bus to Vitoria-Gasteiz. The company running these buses is called LaUnión, and you can check the schedules here. Direct buses take around one hour
and it will amount for about 6 euros. You have to buy your tickets at the La
Unión ticket booth in Termibus.
Tip: we wouldn’t recommend you
to get a taxi from Bilbao to Vitoria-Gasteiz. Vitoria-Gasteiz is about sixty
miles away from Bilbao and it would be very expensive to make that trip by
taxi.
From Madrid
Another option would be to fly
to Madrid first. In that case, there are two options available for you:
1)
To arrive to Vitoria-Gasteiz by train. You need first to travel from the
Adolfo Suarez International Airport (formerly known as Barajas) to Chamartín train station by metro. Take metro line 8 to Mar de Cristal and from there
then take line 4 to Pinar de Chamartín first and then line 1 to Chamartín. Once
in Chamartín Railway Station you can take a train to Vitoria-Gasteiz. There are
around seven trains connecting Madrid and Vitoria-Gasteiz every day and prices
range from 40 to 60 euros approximately. The trip takes around three to five
hours. You can check schedules and prices here. And if you want to check the metro timetable, you can visit the following
website: metro Madrid.
2)
To arrive to Vitoria-Gasteiz by bus. The company running the buses from
Madrid to Vitoria-Gasteiz is called Alsa. You have a ticket office at Adolfo Suarez International Airport (Barajas)
but these buses leaving from the airport run only from Madrid to Bilbao. You
can buy a ticket to Vitoria-Gasteiz, but you’ll probably have to make a stop in
Bilbao. There are only a few buses making this trip from the airport to Bilbao
and they won’t probably fit with your flying plans. If these is so, you’ll have
to do the following:
If you want
to travel directly to Vitoria-Gasteiz or you couldn’t make it on time to take
one of the buses leaving from the airport, you need to go first to Madrid Bus
Station in Avenida
de América. There is a metro
line from the Airport to Avenida de América. You need to take metro line number
8 to Colombia and then metro line 9 to Avenida de América. In any case, you can
go to metro Madrid official website by using the link that I gave you before.
And, of course, you can also take a taxi cab. The trip from Madrid to
Vitoria-Gasteiz takes around four hours and a half and the ticket is 27-30
euros approx. There are many buses every day and tickets can be bought at the
bus station or online.
Once in
Vitoria-Gasteiz
The American Literary West III
International Conference will take place at the Faculty of Arts of the
University of the Basque Country (check the website if you want to know more
about us: Faculty of Arts).
All distances (from bus or
train stations or from most of the hotels to the conference venue, also from
the conference venue to the old town, the city center or shopping areas) are
all walking distances, sometimes, even in pedestrian ways.
Vitoria-Gasteiz is a friendly
city, well known for its many running lovers, an easy-to-bike city and it is
appreciated and celebrated for its green areas and parklands (in 2012, the city
was awarded the European Green Capital recognition). So get ready to make a lot
of walking and forget about subways and taxi cabs. However, since 2008, the
city enjoys a tramwaysystem that can be very useful if your hotel happens to be in a distant area.
Where to
Stay in Vitoria-Gasteiz
Vitoria-Gasteiz has a good
range of lodging possibilities. In the following table, you’ll find a list of
hotels, hotel ratings, the average room prices for an individual room (you
better check this again before choosing one or the other), estimated distance
to the conference venue and a link to the corresponding website so that you can
book your room. Please, remember that we do not have any kind of agreement with
any of these hotels and you are free to choose. Of course, our list here is not
accurate or interested. You can check the whole list that Vitoria-Gasteiz City
Council proposes to every tourist coming to visit the city here.
Before we copy here the
aforementioned list of hotels, please, remember that if you want to stay in
Bilbao or Donostia-San Sebastián before or after the conference, you may want
to check the official websites to get more information (you can do it here and here). We don’t recommend to stay in any of these two cities and then commute
to the conference. That would mean about an hour from Bilbao and an hour and
half from Donostia-San Sebastián every day.
If the following table is too
small for you to have a good reading, you’ll find another copy on pdf format at
the end of this entry.
List of
Hotels
Hotel
|
Rating
|
Average
Prices
(Individual
Room)
|
Distance
from venue
(walking)
|
website
|
Gran Hotel
Lakua
|
5
|
90-110
euros
|
50 mts
|
http://www.granhotelakua.com/
|
Hotel
Boulevard
|
4
|
68-90
euros
|
30 mts
|
http://www.boulevardvitoriahotel.com/
|
NH
Canciller Ayala
|
4
|
70-90
euros
|
10 mts
|
http://www.nh-hotels.com/
|
Silken
Ciudad de Vitoria
|
4
|
73-106
euros
|
10 mts
|
http://www.hoteles-silken.com/hoteles/ciudad-vitoria/
|
Abba Jazz
Vitoria
|
3
|
60-70 euros
|
8 mts
|
http://www.abbahoteles.com/es/index.html
|
AC General
Álava
|
3
|
67-105
euros
|
20 mts
|
http://www.espanol.marriott.com/hotels/travel/vitge-ac-hotel-general-alava/
|
Centro
Vitoria
|
2
|
36-41
euros
|
8 mts
|
http://www.hotelcentrovitoria.com/
|
Dato
|
2
|
32-36
euros
|
7 mts
|
http://www.hoteldato.com/
|
Please,
remember that prices are in euros, distances in minutes and that we highly
recommend to check again prices and availability by visiting the
corresponding websites.
|
||||
In the following link you’ll find a map in which you can find all these
hotels tagged and you can study distances and locations: https://mapsengine.google.com/map/edit?mid=zMAQx3P_T8yk.kSAewPknHqbY
(copy this link if needed and paste it in your search bar)
Just in case you have any
trouble with the direct links we offered within the text, here you have a
complete list of all the websites we have recommended to visit:
Vitoria-Gasteiz Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitoria-Gasteiz
Vitoria-Gasteiz
City Council Official Website:
http://www.vitoria-gasteiz.org/
Basque
Country Tourism:
http://tourism.euskadi.net/en/
RENFE: http://www.renfe.com/
Bilbao
International Airport:
http://www.aeropuertodebilbao.net/es/
Shuttle-Bus
Bilbao Airport:
http://www.aena-aeropuertos.es/csee/Satellite/Aeropuerto-Bilbao/es/Page/1237554477328/
Autobuses La Unión: http://www.autobuseslaunion.com/es/
Chamartín
Railway Station: http://www.adif.es/en_US/infraestructuras/estaciones/17000/informacion_000295.shtml
Metro Madrid:
http://www.metromadrid.es/es/index.html
ALSA Bus
Company: http://www.alsa.es/en/
Avenida de América Bus:
http://www.spain.info/es/informacion-practica/transportes/estaciones-autobus/madrid/estacion_de_autobuses_de_avenida_de_america.html
Faculty of
Arts: http://www.ehu.es/en/web/letrak/home
Vitoria Tramway:
http://www.euskotren.es/es/tranviavitoria
Bilbao: www.bilbao.net/
Donostia-San Sebastián: www.donostia.org/
List of hotels in pdf format: click here.
If you need any further
information, please feel free to make any comment in this entry and we will try
to give you further guidance.
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