Valencia Joaquín Sorolla — Local services in Valencia

I had a very unpleasant experience at Valencia Joaquín Sorolla station. I was traveling in Spain for 15 days (Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia) and bought a pocket knife as a gift for my dad, who collects them. I had no idea Spain’s train stations had airport-style security — if I had known, I wouldn’t have bought it, just to avoid any complications. The knife was in its box, properly wrapped, with the invoice attached to it, and I had no issues bringing it through security at Madrid Puerta de Atocha and Barcelona Sants after showing it to the security check employees.

However, at Valencia, a security staff member stopped us and said the documentation was only valid for 3 days — even though we’d passed through other stations with no issue. After some back-and-forth, she allowed us to keep it. But moments later, she suddenly started yelling at us in Spanish in front of everyone, repeatedly calling us estúpido, and took the knife. It was extremely rude and humiliating.

I don’t mind losing the knife, but the way we were spoken to — especially as tourists — was unacceptable. Everyone else we met in Spain was kind and helpful, but this experience was a real...

Just Horrible! Unbelievable that this station doesn’t offer free public toilet services. Also, I have to wait 11 hours for our train to Madrid, We were exhausted after travelling the whole day and lied down in a chair ( just like many other travellers) but one security guard came to tell us we couldn’t do that . I was very confused by the comment as I don’t know what his concern was. I just thought it might be a cultural thing just to keep a nice image, but then I noticed there was people asking for money all over the place and they seemed to be ok with that. I might be wrong but I found this event strange and unnecessary. The managers should really consider improving staff service and amenities, people travelling from all over the world ends up here and showing a bit of hospitality...

Extremely disappointed, almost missed my train because of their service. When I was in Barcelona-Sants (train station) I was told that since I’m younger than 26 I should put « Joven