5 adults in Spain for 9 days - Madrid, Cordoba, Sevilla

I am not sure it would be best to buy a Cordoba train ticket for 11:35. You would probably be okay, but if your plane was an hour or 90 minutes late, you would be hard pressed to get to Atocha station in time. I faced the same dilemma in October and I opted to pre-purchase a seat on the 1300 (1:00 PM) train. My flight came in approximately on time, so I took the commuter train (get free ticket at the RENFE office in Terminal 4 at the airport) to Puerta de Attocha station and spent the extra time having a leisurely early lunch. I also had time to buy a Spanish sim card for my IPhone which allowed me to place both local and international phone calls at no additional charge. I bought a plan for euro 20 which gave me 400 minutes of voice time and 2 GB of data. I then caught my 13:00 train and arrived in Cordoba about 75 minutes later (14:48) than I would have on the earlier train. It was, however. a much, much less stressful morning than if I had tried for the 11:35 train.

Question for Jack: did you have your lunch inside Atocha station or at a nearby restaurant? Your solution sounds like a perfect idea. Thank you!

Will we be able to make the 11:35 am train to Cordoba if we get into Madrid at 8am? Should we buy tix in advance or not risk it if we get delayed?

I agree with Jack... It's impossible to know if there will be any unforeseen delays with your flight or at the airport; it's always best to give yourself a large cushion of time.

Our experience was similar to Jack's. We purchased our train tickets at the airport's Renfe office, took the C-1 Cercanias train from Terminal 4 (free with AVE purchase), then purchased a SIM card at 'Telecor' (#16 on the diagram) at the Atocha train station, we ate a late breakfast (at the station), then took the AVE to Córdoba.

The best thing was that our hotel room was ready when we arrived, so we could take a short , "power nap", before exploring this amazing city ;-)

Enjoy your trip!

I don't see any mention of what month you are going, but I don't think you will need to pre-purchase tickets for the Mezquita. We were there in May, and while there were quite a few people, there was no real line to buy tickets.

From the previous post - the trip is in mid-February.

I still think you should wait to buy Renfe tickets to Cordoba when you get there, but I'm not a gambler. Aside from your other train tickets, you probably don't need to buy anything until you get there.

I would not expect a long ticket line at the Mezquita. There are limited tickets to climb the tower (separate from the Mezquita entry), so you may have to do that in the morning, but if you're zonked after the flight, you may want to wait anyway.

There may be a short line at the Prado first thing in the morning. You may want to buy in advance, but you probably don't have to.

Day trip from Madrid - I loved Toledo. Haven't been to either of the others.

I just paid attention that you have a late afternoon departure. I know this is turning your planning on it's head, but you could start in Madrid, with a day trip or even an overnight in Toledo and on to Sevilla, ending in Cordoba. You could easily take the train from Cordoba via Atocha to Barajas with plenty of time to get your flight home. That would allow you to buy all your train tickets in advance, if there are still savings to be had.

Thanks to Jack, Priscilla, Nancy and Chani - your advice i so welcome and useful! We will wait then on buying tickets to Cordoba once we arrive in Madrid. Chani - your idea about restructuring the trip sounds like a good one - but we already have reservations at our Airbnb locations and we wouldn't be able to change now. Perhaps our next trip I can follow your advice - (wish I had thought of that itinerary before).

I know I waited too long to research pre-booking train tickets and perhaps there are no more savings to be had, as Chani commented, two weeks from departure day. I am trying to balance our need to stay on budget with our desire to be free from tight schedules self-imposed before we even know these cities and what we might want to do once we get there. We have one family member who will qualify for the Tarjeta Dorada card - so there is a tiny bit of savings there if we are too late for the other train discounts.
Thanks again to all for the wonderful support and service this community provides.

I really liked all three of your possible Madrid side trips. All have very interesting historic districts. I'd rank Toledo first, just for the size of the historic area and the sheer number of interesting sights you can enter (if you have time). If you're more fans of modern art than of El Greco, you might consider Cuenca, which has a couple of small, worthwhile modern-art museums.

Since you're museum people you might be interested in the Monasterio de las Descalzas Reales (English website not currently working for me), which Rick describes well in his book. It is a very rich convent. Unfortunately, there's usually--at most--one English tour per day, and even traveling in May I was unable to find out ahead of time when those tours would run. I believe they wait to see what tour groups want to visit, and only then set up a tour. The number of places available is limited to about 20, so if the tour group is large it's hard to get a spot. When I was visiting, you needed to be at the Monasterio a bit before opening time to line up, so you'd snag one of the English-tour spots if any were available. I think the English yours usually started at 10:15 in May, but I have no idea what will happen in February. I was stuck with a Spanish tour, and even that was worthwhile, but I should have re-read the guidebook ahead of time.

The Monasterio is not terribly far from the Palacio Real and only about 1/2 mile from your hotel, so you might be able to stop there shortly after arrival to see whether the tour situation has changed--or perhaps it's different when you are five people rather than one.

I don't think you'll run into significant lines at the Madrid museums unless you hit a free-entry time period, but any of your group planning to go to all of the Prado, Thyssen and Reina Sofia will probably save a bit of money by buying the Paseo del Arte card at the first museum visited. I think the card gives you a single entry to each, though, so keep that in mind when scheduling your trip to the huge Prado. I was glad to be able to split my trip across two days by taking advantage of a free-entry day.

acraven thank you very much! These are great tips. I tried getting on to the English version of the Monasterio site after reading your comment - of course the English version is not working for me and neither is the French, which would have been a nice second. But I can make out enough of the Spanish to figure out the times and tours. And the pictures are gorgeous. . We would very much like to visit there. The Paseo del Arte is a great idea, esp. sandwiching it with a free day. Thanks again!

My browser is Google Chrome. When I get to a website without English, I right-click on the page and then "Translate to English" It works 95% of the time and while it's not the best translation ever, it is enough to get the information I need.

If you're not using Google Chrome, you can access Google Translate at https://translate.google.com/. It's supposed to auto-detect the languages, but I find better results if I choose (in this case, Spanish to English). As Chani says, it's rough, but usually gets the job done.

AH! Chani and Harold - thanks. I didn't think of doing that - too many vivid memories of really terrible auto-translations in the early days. I will give it a go - thanks again.