Barcelona to Madrid

It sounds like you are going to Madrid on some kind of day trip guided tour; viator is known for those. As an experienced traveler my thoughts are that You could do your own day trip for half the price. Buy your train tickets and then when you get to Madrid buy a tour there. Your question is too vague in that you don't say what $350 includes.

Some alternatives here for less expense

https://www.rome2rio.com/map/Barcelona/Madrid

If you're just trying to get to Madrid from Barcelona, check out:

https://loco2.com/en/journey/barcelona-madrid-uhw30u?currency=EUR

That price was just for the fast train. I did go to Eurail and found I can get a pass to do 5 days within one month at around 200.00 and with 2 paying adults the kids are free. I was thinking this might be the best way to go bc I can do
Barcelona to Madrid
Barcelona to Girona
Florence to Venice
Florence to Naples

When is your trip?

Sept 19 to Oct 13

The price I'm seeing for 4 days of train travel in Spain and Italy within 2 months is €255.50 per adult, which is almost $300 per person. Normally I'd say the pass probably wouldn't pay off (you'll have to pay for seat reservations on all the fast trains), but if you really are planning to take day-trips to Madrid, Florence and Rome, maybe a pass will work out economically. I think day-trips to those cities are ill-advised, but that's a different question.

Edited to add: I seem to gave gotten hold of a bad price for the rail pass; I'm sure Laura's is correct.

Your price quote for a Eurail pass is confusing, but it may be the average per person. Anyway, the cost of a Eurail Select pass covering 4 travel days in Spain and Italy is currently $538 for the group ($260 per adult and kids free). In those countries, the faster trains require seat reservations at additional cost (around $50 total per person). The pass plus reservations (about $740) is cheaper than buying full-fare, 2nd-class tickets in Europe (about $900, assuming kids pay half fare). Booking reserved tickets ahead, especially for the two longest trips, would bring the ticket total down. See https://www.ricksteves.com/travel-tips/transportation/trains/spain-rail-passes and https://www.ricksteves.com/travel-tips/transportation/trains/italy-rail-passes for costs and alternatives.

If any of your 4 listed trips are actually roundtrip, then that increases the ticket price estimate, or possibly the number of pass travel days.

I believe that all trains in Spain (see what I did there?) require reservations (added cost and effort), not only the high speed trains. I think you should look carefully at the cost/benefits of the rail pass over simply buying point to point tickets. When I did the analysis for our recent trip to Spain, it was cheaper to buy individual tickets, especially when you have lots of lead to time to book them. The prices tend to go up as the travel date approaches.

Im thinking for some of these shorter trips I might just have to hire a transport van. Are there any companies I can get quote from?
The day we arrive at the port i was thinking of having a driver pick us up and take us to cinque de terra then take us to Florence where we will be staying for 5 nights.. I will figure out the rest I guess when I can understand the whole train system :(
I got a quote from a company today that only included apartment stays, breakfast and 3 tours and the price was 3K per person (family of 4) that is a lot. I have averaged good hotels for 2200.00 however I do not have transport or any tours set yet.!

No, I just priced this for our upcoming trip. Are you using https://venta.renfe.com/vol/home.do?c=_3v7e? Sounds like you are using Rail Europe or one of the other broker sites.

No Im using Eurail... I tried using the one you sent and it says no trains from Barcelona to Madrid?! Thats strange!

I think perhaps you're looking at a date that's just a bit too far out. Try the same day of the week 1, 2 or 3 weeks earlier.

"Im using Eurail."

Rarely a good idea. It's always best to book train tickets direct from the website of the train operator, and only go to other sites if there's a specific reason to do so (for instance, if you can't get a credit card to work).

To book trains from Barcelona to Madrid, use the Renfe site http://www.renfe.com/EN/viajeros/index.html, following this tutorial: https://www.tripadvisor.com/Travel-g187514-c80518/Madrid:Spain:Buying.Renfe.Tickets.Online.html

Note that Renfe doesn't usually work with US credit cards. Just book with PayPal from the start, and save a lot of hassle.

If you can't get Renfe to work, that tutorial has some other ideas, which will still be better than Eurail or Rail Europe.

More information about buying Spain train tickets here, from the invaluable rail guru The Man In Seat 61: https://www.seat61.com/Spain-trains.htm#How_to_buy_train_tickets_for_Spain

No wonder it did not work. I think I will just wait and buy the tickets while in Barcelona. I know they will be more but just too hard to figure it out all online.
When we arrive in Genoa (after looking at prices for drivers) Im thinking we will rent a car near the port and drive to Cinque Terra and then off to our apartment in Florence. Is a car doable to move around? We will still have to do a train to Venice unless driving there from Florence is another possibility..

The price difference for last-minute train tickets will not be trivial. I often wait to buy tickets myself, but it's because I don't firm up my schedule more than a few days in advance and am often taking regional trains (for which the fare doesn't change if you buy late).

Driving in Italy requires preparation. You need a good guide book, and you need to read the section on traveling by car, paying particular attention to information on ZTLs (where non-locals are not allowed to drive), bus lanes, speeding cameras, etc. Don't be one of those folks who show up here 6 to 12 months after returning home, complaining about receiving multiple very costly traffic tickets in the mail.

Cars are not recommended for getting around cities (quite the opposite). Navigating is tricky, avoiding ZTLs requires constant attention, and parking can be both hard to find and costly. A car is very useful if you plan to spend some time in an area like rural Tuscany. It's worse than useless for Florence and Venice. The Cinque Terre are linked by local trains and (less frequent) boats, so I think I'd look for a place to drop the car as quickly as possible, maybe in La Spezia? Aside from the care needed to avoid traffic infractions and the cost of parking, the fast trains (where available) will get you to your destination much faster than a car.

If you buy the tickets in Barcelona will cost you a lot more, apart that the queues at the station are really long. It ain't that hard buying at renfe.com , buy well in advance and you will save money

Agree with Joan. You can buy train tickets 3 months ahead I believe. RENFE has an English site, I would pay by VISA as it seems to give less problems than MasterCard. Finally, alert your credit card provider that you will be buying tickets from RENFE(Spain). Until I alerted them, my CC provider kept blocking my purchase. Don't buy AVE tickets at the station, you will pay dearly, usually double.

Don't despair. Using the Renfe site is definitely not as easy as some other train booking sites, but it does work, if you follow the Trip Advisor tutorial directions. And if you don't want to deal with Renfe, you can use https://www.trainline.eu/ or https://loco2.com/; I haven't used these, but others on this Forum have and say they are easy to use.

As others have said, if you wait to buy tickets when you are there:

1) You will pay double to triple what you would pay with advance purchase.
2) You will have to wait in long lines at the station
3) You may find some trains are sold out (Madrid to Barcelona is a popular route).

Loco 2 is perfectly easy to use and straightforward. Don’t hesitate!

Are the trains less expensive than flights?

J.B.: The prices for the trains themselves are about the same as the flights themselves. Both start out cheap if bought far in advance, and go way up as you get closer to travel. But that's not the end of the story:

1) The cheap flight prices will not include any luggage fees, and if you have more than a handbag, you'll have to pay for checked luggage or a bigger carry-on allowance. The luggage limits on these domestic flights are very tight, and tend to be strictly enforced, as that's how airlines make money. Again, you can pay for more luggage, but you have to include that in the total cost. On the train, basically anything you can carry on yourself is included in the fare (not literally true, as there is officially a limit, but even that official limit is much higher than the one for a flight).

2) The train is much faster, city center to city center. By the time you include getting to your departure airport (much farther from the center than the train station), waiting time at the airport (even for this domestic flight, you need to be there at least an hour before takeoff, and probably more like 90 minutes), and getting from your arrival airport to the city center, plus the flight time itself, it's much more than the 2.5-3 hours the train takes. By contrast, you only have to get to the train station about 15 minutes before your train departs; you do have to go through security, but it's just a bag x-ray with no metal detector. And the AVE train does close the doors a few minutes before departure time, so you can't jump on just as the train's leaving.

3) Getting to and from the airports is not free. Particularly if you are taking a taxi at one or both ends, it's much more expensive than a taxi from the train station.

So, unless time and hassle are of no object to you, you really want to take the train on this route - even if the flight seems to be "cheaper" at first.

Almost a month has passed since the original post, so these comments may be too late; be that as it may. The above responses are more knowledgeable than I am regarding the ins-and-outs of trains and flights. I will add that if the time and cost are similar (train/fly), like others have said, I'd always take the train; only because you are basically center city to center city. and you avoid the (logistics of getting to/from the airport and the (now ubiquitous) multiple queues at the airport.

On one of your earlier posts you mentioned Barcelona, Madrid, Girona, Florence, Venice and Naples. In a later post you mentioned "from port" (Genoa) to Cinque Terre; are you traveling by ship during your visit, or was I not paying close enough attention? In any case, Genoa to Cinque Terre is a brief train trip, and we thought a rather scenic one. Depending which town you're staying in (we stayed in Monterosso al Mare), or perhaps you're not staying in Cinque Terre at all, but if you are, the train could be a good option from Genoa. Similarly, a train from Cinque Terre to Florence doesn't seem to me to be a bad option (by way of Pisa). You could even stop in Pisa for half-a-day if you chose to do so.

I noted on your trips that one is "Florence to Naples". Is this a day trip? If so, that will be a super long day. Several years ago we used Bologna a a train "hub" for travels in Northern Italy. Among our trips was one to Rome and back in a day; it was a very long day and well into night (I think we got back to our Bologna hotel around midnight or a little later). Our primary reason for the visit was to the Vatican Museum (which was marvelous) but that is about all we saw of Rome, unless you count brief visits to the Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain and the Pantheon as "seeing Rome". We didn't and have subsequently visited Rome several times hence. We'll be back again next April.

I also noted in one of your posts (i think 06.26) a cost of US$ 12,000 for a family of 4 for an apartment (In Florence I assume and for the 5 days you noted you'll be there) breakfast and 3 tours. I would think you could spend a lot less than US$12,000. A quick check on booking.com included many choices for a family of 4 at a hotel for around US$700 for a 4 night stay (maybe not 5 star, but a hotel). Allowing US$50.00/day for breakfast, that's another US$250. My details/assumptions may be off a bit but you get the idea. US$12,000 strikes me as rather pricey, but we travel very frugally.

Hope you get your transportation worked out and have a great time, where ever you go.