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Cordoba Stopover- how long to budget?

This question may be offensive to many, but I suffer from serious FOMO and feel I need to see everything. My wife and are I compatible in our desire to see things quickly and move on.

If I were to do a stopover in Cordoba in between a Seville and Granada train (or Granada and Madrid), what's the minimum amount of time we need to budget for to comfortably do this? We'd need to drop our luggage in storage, tour the Cathedral-Mosque, walk around briefly, and then back to our luggage and train.

Secondary question: for either of the train routes mentioned above stopping in Cordoba, I understand there are frequent trains throughout the day. Are we locked-into the train times we select or is there flexibly on the day of travel (as in: oh well, we'll catch the next one). Traveling late September.

Thank you!

Posted by
8694 posts

Hi, I would say 3.5 hours minimum. But it’s a nice area to also have lunch & not rush the atmosphere, so I would want additional time. And you can buy your second train ticket when you’re ready to leave.

Be sure to purchase the Mezquita timed ticket ahead of time when tickets open on-line. I can’t remember if I purchased it a month or more ahead of time last February.

Please tell me you’re not rushing through Sevilla! ; )

Posted by
266 posts

You could do Cordoba in a few hours. It's a small town. Some people feel that they would like to stay several days, but the mezquita is the big site in town. You could book a tour of the mezquita and have lunch and then go back to the train

Now that there are faster trains, it is much easier to get to Granada and stop in Cordoba the same day. I tried to do this in 2020 and it just didn't work with the transportation options available then.

Posted by
7878 posts

If you’re already looking to leave Córdoba and you’ve yet to visit it, skip it. The city is worth more time than you want to give it. Don’t go there just to check a box saying you were there. While the Mezquita is the main draw, there are more things to see.

Posted by
170 posts

In terms of train tickets, flexibility will vary slightly between the different train companies, and their train offerings. Renfe will give you 4 levels of ticket between "basico" and "premium." Iryo also has different flexibility levels in their tiers of tickets. The non-basic/budget tickets allow you to change your train, but you will pay a fee (and the price difference between tickets) if you need to change after you missed your train.