we are traveling late march/early april 2018 - Barcelona (3 nights), AVE to Madrid (2 or 3 nights) day trips outside of Madrid, then Hill towns. would like to know what is the best plan for the car rental? we are willing to train to a smaller town to pick up a car rental, so as to avoid the stress of navigating a large city such as Madrid. Any suggestions?
Posted by
Rick Steves' Europe
16895 posts
If you pick up a car near Madrid Atocha station, it's a straight shot of about 3 km before you join the highway M-30. It also looks relatively simple to navigate out of town from Cordoba train station. Ronda is also served by train (4 hours direct from Madrid) but only has one local car rental agency, which probably would not facilitate leaving the car at a different destination: www.rondarentacar.com.
Posted by
OP
Fountain Valley, California, USA
28 posts
Thanks for your input, Laura! Would you say that Ronda or Cordoba would be a good base city in order to drive through the hill towns? We could then leave the rental car in one of those places and either fly back to US from there or train to Madrid and fly home.