I know this is very last minute but I received confirmation that my friend will arrive in Barcelona August 1. We fly out August 10. I am trying to find out if is feasible to take one overnight trip to Toledo, taking the train early one morning to Madrid, transferring to Toledo to see the sights and spend the night. Then return to Barcelona the next day. The Spanish train system confuses me so I don't know about how much this will cost round-trip per person and the actual traveling time. I appreciate any assistance. Thanks as always!!
Posted by
Rick Steves' Europe
16893 posts
Travel time is 4 hours each way, give or take a half hour variation on some departures. Ticket price depends on how soon you book the tickets. Spain has both advance-purchase and roundtrip discounts but you probably have to book the two different roundtrip portions on separate tickets in order to get the roundtrip discount. www.renfe.es currently has some fares in the neighborhood of €130 roundtrip per person in 2nd/Tourist class. Full fares go up to $130 each way in 2nd class.
Posted by
Seattle, WA
16287 posts
You would take a high-speed AVE train from Barcelona to Madrid, and change there to an Avant train for the short 30-minute ride to Toledo. Renfe (the spanish train site) will sell you a ticket for this as one trip; the cost depends on the date. I put in 3 August as a random date and it came up at 75,95 euros per person one-way. You depart Barcelona Sants station at 7:05 am and arrive in Madrid at 9:50. Depart on the Avant train to Toledo 30 minutes later, at 10:20, and arrive in Toledo at 10:52. So the overall journey is just under 4 hours.
We loved Toledo and an overnight there is well worth it. You can book this on Renfe:
http://www.renfe.com/EN/viajeros/
Or if that is difficult to understand, you can use Rail Europe but it will cost more (about 20 percent more when I checked). It appears from Laura's post that there is some discount with a round-trip booking.
Posted by
New York, NY, USA
11294 posts
First, look at the Bahn website to see all your train options; when I took this trip in reverse last year, the Renfe site only showed two options for the whole day, while the Bahn site showed them all.
If the Renfe site doesn't show the option you want as a single ticket (Barcelona to Toledo), you will have to book separate tickets (Barcelona to Madrid and Madrid to Toledo). Since you change trains in Madrid Atocha station in any case, it's only a matter of how you buy the tickets. For Madrid to Toledo, there was a slight discount for roundtrip (not sure about Barcelona to Madrid).
If you are buying tickets from Renfe, you will need this tutorial: https://www.tripadvisor.com/Travel-g187514-c80518/Madrid:Spain:Buying.Renfe.Tickets.Online.html
Do not waste time trying your US credit card on the Renfe site; use PayPal, which works.