Trens para Irun

We doubt that anyone, in the entire history of travel, ever packed their bags anticipating a wonderful holiday fortnight in Irun. It is a bit too dominated by industry and railway shunting yards to really pull the holiday crowds. But it is a place that many travellers to Spain will eventually pass through and it features a lot on itineraries here on our website. If you do need to overnight in the area, you’ll find a couple of hotels near the station, but your best bet is to take a bus or cab 7 km north to Hondarribia, a small fishing port on the Bidasoa Estuary that’s full of picturesque Basque style.

Irun is the last station in Spain before the French border. On the other bank of the river are the French community of Hendaye and even more shunting yards. You can walk across the bridge to Hendaye, but there’s also a regular tram, the easternmost part of the Metro Donostialdea network, or you can choose to go by train for a cheap price.

Irun benefits from having high-speed TGV trains from Paris, and the journey time from Paris to Irun was reduced to just five hours in July 2017 with the opening of the new high-speed line from Tours to Bordeaux. Some TGVs run on over the bridge from Hendaye to terminate in Irun and give easy connections onto onward Spanish services. French regional trains (TER) from Toulouse, Bordeaux and Dax terminate in Hendaye, from where it’s just a short hop on the tram to Irun.

From Irun, Renfe trains fan out across Spain, with direct services to Barcelona, Madrid, Santiago de Compostela, Burgos, Zaragoza and many other cities. There is also an overnight service to Lisbon. Closer to hand there is a regular local train service to San Sebastián, where Renfe faces stiff competition from the more frequent Metro Donostialdea tram. Throughout 2019, a major project at Irun is underway, heralding the extension of French-gauge tracks to the Basque city of San Sebastián. That means that passengers travelling to, from or through Irun may see some disruption or short-term changes to train services.