Day trip Seville to Cordoba, train question

We did this in May, bought go & return tickets at train station (at ticket counter) on the morning of. No problem but we knew when we wanted to return (last train) so that we could be in Cordoba as long as possible including dinner. I don't remember any of the train options being AVE, that's the high speed express train that doesn't make a lot of stops and you don't need AVE to go Seville - Cordoba - Seville, you can save money there. Was about an hour going to Cordoba and an hour 15 minutes returning. Easier taking taxi from Sevilla train station back to hotel in evening, esp mid-October when it gets dark earlier.

Unless you think you'll be really tired, I can assure you that there is enough to see and do in Cordoba to fill an entire day and there are excellent restaurants for dinner

Firstly don't obsess about using an AVE service. As Kent notes, for a journey that short it doesn't make any difference in time if you use another service such as "Avant". The only ones that are noticeably longer are the regional stopping services such as "MD".

Secondly coming back there are lots of options if you don't focus just on AVE trains. With some services it makes no difference how far you buy in advance as they only have a fixed fare, with no promo reductions. Even where there are reductions the amounts involved are, to my mind, not significant enough to worry about (it would be different if you planned along journey across the
country).

Thanks for the information! I did see other options that were about 1 hour 15 minutes and that would be fine. I do worry about getting tired (more so that I have had plantar fasciitis for 8 years and if it is too bad I might need to get back). But worried about getting to the station to return and tickets being sold out and then having to wait around. I know we are going to really enjoy Cordoba and would like to stay as long as I can, but the planner in me is also wondering about picking a return time and buying in advance so we have our ticket.

It's a significant walk from the Mezquita area to the train station, a taxi might make sense for people who don't want to do the walk or take the time to do the walk.

Definitely a taxi. They aren't expensive and my nightmare is being dead tired and getting lost, ending up walking 2 or 3 times longer than needed, and being frustrated and in pain to boot.

Thanks so much Nick, Kent and Chani. A taxi is a great idea, will also plan to do that to/from our hotel to the train station and other times to save my foot! I'll power through as much as I can and have done so in the past. If needed, will stop for a glass or 2 of wine! I may have to put aside the planner side of me and not buy the return ticket ahead of time to make sure we are able to spend as much time as we want once there. Thanks again!

We bought only our tickets to Cordoba, and walked to the mezquita from the train station, but took a taxi back. It's not a terribly long or difficult walk, but also not particularly exciting (and we were there in July so it was pretty darn hot!).

Coming back, there was no problem getting a ticket to go back to Seville and we were glad to have not locked ourselves in to a departure time - since it was so hot, we actually spent a bit less time than we may have originally guessed. The only thing that could happen is that if you arrive close to the next train's departure, sometimes you may be asked to buy a ticket from the place where you normally go through a security check instead of a ticket counter. This happened to us; we bought tickets from an employee just before descending to the platform, getting unassigned seats. The employee told us to stay standing until everyone was seated and then just choose remaining seats.

We did the train from Seville to Cordoba back in May. We took a local city bus from the train station to Mesquita and back, it was not expensive (around 1.40 Euro??) There are bus stops outside the train station that are very clear to see which bus number you need and just ask the bus driver to tell you where to get off - the bus has a recorded message to tell passengers which stop is coming up. It was an easy short walk along the river from where we got off the bus to Mesquita. Quick and easy.