Seeking info on cultures of Lourdes and Barcelona plus travel details for journey from Lourdes to Barcelona?

Question

Hi! My family is planning to travel to Lourdes and Barcelona.
Because we are not familiar with Europe, i have several questions.
a) Are there any special customs we should observe? (For eg. Thais do not like someone to pat the heads of their children). We heard that there it is very hot in Barcelona now. Would the locals be offended if we wear shorts in public?

b) We would like to travel to Barcelona from Lourdes. What is the most convenient way to travel to Barcelona from Lourdes? I did some research and the words "renfe" and "eurarail" kept coming up. Are they the same train service? How long does it take to travel to Barcelona from Lourdes?

c) As we are Asian, we do not speak much french and little or no spanish. While we are struggling to learn the basic words, i was wondering if we would face much difficulty (for eg, during the purchase of train tickets or reading the train schedule)

Thanks in advance for all the help!

Answer 1

First of all, English, with a smile, will get a long way in France and Spain, specially if it is clear that it is not your own language. So do not be affraid that you need Spanish or French as tourist.
Both Barcelona and Lourdes get people from many different places so they are used to people not speaking the local language.
Reading the scedule is not hard, as the French and Spanish words are like the English, but ask at the station if your scedule is not for a specific day as not all trains run every day and reading the exceptions is much harder.

Eurail is a system that allows you to travel a lot in Europe for a set (rather low) price, but it is much more expensive than a train ticket just for your travel, as the two places are rather close together, (North of Spain, South of France.)
Renfe and SNCF are the Spanish and French rail companies, your ticket will be for both countries.
If you can not get your ticket sorted online you can ask a travel agent at home (if they do these train tickets) or leave it till you are in Europe and ask at a station there.

This is a site with train information in France, (in English)
http://www.voyages-sncf.com/dynamic/_SvHomePage?_DLG=SvHomePage&_CMD=cmdHomepageUK&WB=HP&rfrr=4685ac17fd2e7656e4918c53b246a3f7
This is the Spanish site in English:
http://horarios.renfe.es/hir/ingles.html (I can only find the national part of the site but there should be an international part too.)

A quick search showed that the travel will take about 10 hours, but I could not get the price for you.

For things to do or not to do, most Europeans are rather easy going, shorts in town is not a problem, but when going into a church in Spain and France they like it when your shoulders and legs above the knee are covered, so if you wear a top with open shoulders bring a shawl or shirt to cover-up, and a skirt if you wear short shorts, or a wrap to use as skirt. Men and kids in shorts are less a problem, but if you are in Lourdes you might feel better in longer shorts, (to the knee) or long trousers.

If you are not sure, allow people some personal space and stay about half a meter away from them, not all find it needed but some people will feel better that way.