Barcelona, Madrid, Grenada, and Seville - what advance tickets should I buy?

If you want to visit these places, you should not simply walk up to them, planning to buy a ticket on the spot. You would probably encounter a line at least an hour long, and all tickets for that day might already be sold out.

Seville:
- Alcazar
- Cathedral (you can buy the ticket at the Iglesia de El Salvador, not far away)

Barcelona:
- La Sagrada Familia
- Parc Guell
- Casa Mila/La Pedrera
- Casa Batllo
- Palau de la Musica Catalana (here the problem is getting on an English tour)
- Picasso Museum

Madrid:
- On some occasions would be glad to have bought your ticket to the Palacio Real in advance; on some other days, it might not be an issue.

You should definitely buy your train tix now or as soon as possible. There are tix from Madrid Atocha to Barcelona Sants in July for $16, for example. If you wait the price can be as high as $189. The same for
Madrid Atocha to Seville Santa Justa station. There also is a high-speed train from Madrid Atocha to Granada. If you buy a ticket for May 3 it’s $150. but plan ahead for July and the 3-hr train is just $32. Buy now and you can save hundreds of euros on these train tix. You can buy train tix at www.TheTrainline.com which is much easier to use than the Renfe website.

Kenko- A side note that the cheap train fares between Barcelona and Madrid are due to the addition of two lost-cost brands now competing with Renfe's traditional 'mainline' service. Advance purchase is still a good call, but the new options should continue to present significant value.

I should have mentioned in my original response that the places I list were problematic for walk-up customers before the pandemic. The advice I gave is the advice I found on this forum and in Rick's books before my 2016 trip to northern Spain and my 2019 trip to southern Spain. I'd hate to think tickets are even tougher now, but they might be.

Good point by Scudder above. The EU mandated that there could no longer be national train monopolies. Spain’s Renfe, the Spanish National Train company, along with all the other national train companies (like SNCF in France) must now offer low-cost products. New companies, such as Ouigo, came along and offer tickets on high-speed trains of their own and the competition has driven down train ticket prices, particularly on the long-haul routes.
Many of the best deals on advance-purchase train tickets open up 60 or 90 days before the day you want to travel. While many of the best deals can be found on the website of the national train company (such as the Czech Republic’s Cesky Drahy or CD ) that’s not always the case.
If you want to know about discounted train tickets a good source of information is the website “The Man in Seat 61.”

Happy travels!

Ouigo is owned by SNCF

So, how is it that Ouigo is owned by SNCF to compete with SNCF in France? I’m having a hard time understanding that. I see that the Spanish National train company Renfe also owns Avlo- another “low-cost” train subsidiary in Spain.
I get that it offers a low-cost product in the reduced ticket prices, but how do you have real competition if the “new” subsidiary is owned by the same umbrella company which is the National Train Company?
Renfe could be getting a run for its money with France’s SNCF now having crossed the border into Spain to compete with the once-protected national train company’s business. It seems, though, SNCF will only have real competition in France if DeutscheBahn or similar decides to cross into France to compete with SNCF.

Kenko- I understand that Belgian and Italian private operators (not subsidiaries of national train companies) are looking to move into the French market.

One issue in France is that their high-speed rail infrastructure is used much more than Spain’s, so with less spare capacity the rail network can charge higher usage fees. (Versus in Spain, where they’ve built in the largest high speed networks in the world with one of the lowest utilization rates.)

Scudder, Thank you for that illumination. I think non-National train companies such as what you’ve described entering the French market is what it will take to realize the EU’s goal of having competition with the National Train companies. It’s going to take some time…

Buy all of your tickets as soon as you can! For every sight! Trust me! Just returned. Wisest thing I did!