Bus/train vs rental car in Southern Spain

You need to check the public transportation options to the places you want to go. There may be no train service to some or bus schedules may not work with your timetable, but you’ll know that once you check out the options.

For the few days you’d have a rental car fuel cost will be nominal. My guess is you’d probably use a half tank at most. There are free parking lots in most cities. You may need to walk for 10 minutes to reach the historic center, but there would be no parking cost. You need to look up free lots prior to going over since most are not marked as being free. City center parking in larger cities is most in underground garage and does cost €15-€20 a day. In larger cities it will be more. If your lodging offers pay on-site parking it may be €11-€15 a day, so less expensive than a parking garage.

The rental insurance coverages you choose can add a significant amount to the car rental cost.

Seville to Cordoba is a 42 min train
Cordoba to Ronda is a combination of 2 trains taking 2.5-3 hours vs 2h17 min driving
Ronda to Tarifa is a combination of train & bus taking 3 hours vs 2h14min driving
Tarifa to Granada is 2 busses for 5.5 hours vs 3h18min driving.

There's the extra stress of parking, but there's the added convenience of shaving time off our trip times. Maybe I'm overthinking this?

I think our hotel in Ronda has parking in a garage provided, but our hotel in Tarifa does not.

Hopefully someone who has used public transportation to those places will chime in. I always get a rental car due to the places we visit.

If you look up parking, hotels, etc., that you are going to visit before your trip and bookmark them to whichever navigation app you use, you can go straight to them. That takes away much of the stress regarding parking.

We are a group of 4, including my brother. Our dad loved to drive, but we thought we'd use the train to avoid the issues with restricted driving zones. After doing the math, our numbers really suggested the convenience of a car and savings meant we should do the whole trip by car rather than renting one after we took the train from Madrid to Cordoba. Overall, car rental prices in Spain seemed fair, and train tickets didn't seem that expensive but when you are putting 4 people in the car, the savings became substantial. I tried a variation of train/car itineraries and it seemed that Granada was the most expensive place to rent and that the train fare to Granada from Cordoba seemed the most expensive. Even acknowledging the cost of parking for longer stays in Cordoba, Granada, and Seville, we have decided to do the whole trip by car.

Like you, La Mezquita in Cordoba seemed incredible. We will also be there for the Patios celebration. Good luck with you travel planning and have a wonderful time.

NOTES FOR PEOPLE WHO HAVEN'T DRIVEN IN ANCIENT/HISTORIC CITIES.
We are currently planning a 3-week trip to Spain, arriving in Valencia on April 18.
I am trying to figure out how to get from one city to the other. I FAR prefer to have a car for the spontaneity, ability to leave/arrive/stop when and where I want -- to just throw the bags and snacks and anything we buy in the backseat -- rather than worrying about getting to train station, waiting, getting luggage on and off (my husband is 79), etc.

I AM HIGHLY EXPERIENCED DRIVING IN EUROPE.
I am a native of San Francisco (60 yrs) so used to driving on crazy steep hills, in "Silicon Valley" and city traffic. Lived in L.A. for 3 years -- so I'm a very experienced and "bullet-proof" driver.
I've also driven ALL over the UK/Ireland/Scotland on 15+ trips since 1983 (opposite side, manual transmission -- no problem for me). I've rented a car in Lisbon -- NOT to use within the city, but to travel to Evora and Monsaraz near the eastern border w/Spain -- easy.

HAVING SAID THAT -- DRIVING IN SICILY LAST APRIL ALMOST ENDED OUR MARRIAGE>
Based on what I'd read, I refused to drive in Palermo or Catania (moved car rental to Airport after taking a taxi -- when merging they will literally come within 6" of another car. It was truly terrifying. i can't imagine how people who are NOT "city drivers" don't have heart attacks.

We had a car booked in Taormina -- bus ride from Catania train station up STEEP hill to hotel at night was indescribably -- public bus backed downhill on streets with NO margin (houses to the edge of the road) to let ANOTHER bus doing down steep hill pass in pitch blackness. NO way I was driving there (though it cost $ to cancel).

We did go back to Catania airport (edge of city not in it) to rent a car and then drove all around the island (which was fabulous in April -- warning: CRUISE SHIPS start coming in May!)

I am amazed that my (very happy) marriage survived.

The cities are built for defense, so most are up CRAZY steep (and remember, I'm a San Franciscan who drove a manual car up STEEP streets on a daily basis! I KNOW how to do this!) and narrow -- like, you can barely squeeze 1 car through a street that has cars parked on one side and 300-yr old stone houses on the opposite. Husband in passenger seat, reading GPS yelling "TURN HERE! TURN HERE!" as I passed a street 12 ft wide that required me making a 90=degree turn up a steep hill from a street that was 20 ft wide. As these are ALL ancient cities, they are not on a "grid," of course, so if you miss a turn, you can't just make a left at the next corner to turn the block.

And of course, because none of them were made for cars -- hardly for horse-drawn carts! -- there is NO parking. Even in Glasgow last year (which I've been to 3x and always driven in) trying to drive to the Marriott in the city center, the GPS keep directing us on a route that wouldve taken us down a blocked off tiny street between the 19th c City Hall buildings. After driving in circles for 20 minutes trying to figure it out, we went a different way. Turns out the city had made part of that a "taxi only" lane and we got a ticket for $60 after returning home because we were caught doing it on traffic camera. We still have NO idea how you would get to the front of the hotel in a personal or rental car -- the public parking garage is a block away (uphill) and we had to roll our bags there.

SO - while I DO NOT want the getting to and from train and bus stations and pulling luggage on and off and being restricted by their schedules ("oops! we're not going to make THAT train...") it seems that there is really no practical alternative when you want to visit ancient, historic cities.
IT WAS HELL -- and I like driving and far prefer the ability to explore and be spontaneous that having a car offers.

We enjoy road tripping but chose to only use trains and buses in southern Spain. We chose not to visit Ronda or Tarifa. We spent 5 nights in Seville, 3 nights in Cordoba, and 3 nights in Granada. It was relaxing and there was plenty to see and do.

We used only trains and buses while traveling through Andalusia, and it was a wonderful way to travel. Not stressful at all. Trains were always on time, clean, and comfortable. The ALSA buses are wonderful, too. Clean, comfortable, airconditioned and on time. I personally think public transportation is the way to go in this part of Spain. We used trains and/or buses to go from Madrid, to Toledo, to Cordoba, to Granada, to Malaga, and then to Seville, our final destination.

You have very little time in Sevilla, a wonderful historic city with so much to see and do. You basically have 1.5 days in Sevilla. We spent 4 nights in Sevilla, and we would have loved an extra day there. Historically and culturally, Sevilla is a more important city than Ronda.

I recommend spending a night or two in Cordoba as well. The Mezquita is amazing, but Cordoba has so much else to offer. The Alcazar gardens, the Roman Bridge, Palacio de Viana, and just wandering around the beautiful Juderia.