Hi Again,
I have one more question, we are considering driving from Sevilla to Madrid instead of taking the train. How long would this take? What route would you suggest taking is it a nightmare to drive into Madrid once we arrive in the city?
I'd love to hear if it's worth it to drive. By the way, we are use to driving long distance at home. We don't mind long car drives. I'm just concerned it's not doable in 1 day.
Thank you!
It's doable in one day if you really want to. But if you just want to get to M from S I really can't see any point in driving. It would take 6-7 hours compared to around 3 hours by train.
If you want to make stops along the way though and spend a night somewhere, a car can be a good idea.
As Badger stated, there’s no need for a car if just driving between those places. There’s no need for a car in Madrid. Last time I had a car in Madrid years ago, parking was 20€ a night.
If you decide to drive you can go east then north on the E5. The other route would take you west then north through Extremadura. Both routes would take between 5.5 and 6 hours without stops.
Personally, we always drive in Spain but we stop in small towns and avoid the large cities, since we’ve visited the ones we wanted to visit.
If you:
There is really no reason to drive instead of take the train. It will likely take roughly twice as long to drive instead of to take the train.
It's different if one (or both) of the conditions above don't apply -- i.e. if you need to drive because of a condition, or because you want to stop at small towns or detour along the way, then it makes sense to drive. (But if you're going to do this in one day, you don't have that much time to make long detours anyway.)
Thank you everyone for your insights! We were considering driving in order to stop at the smaller towns to Madrid. We might have to do it next time because we only have 1 day. I'll have to research train schedules next and when we need to purchase the tickets.
The best place to research times and prices for trains in Spain is Trainline.eu. In Spain there are multiple companies running high speed trains, and Trainline will show all of them, so you can compare prices. From what I hear Iryo is the best of the different operators.
If you want to make stops along the way you should in my opinion spend at least one night along the way. Otherwise you will spend most of the time sitting in the car and won't have much time left for actually seeing things.
Regarding trains in Spain, Renfe is the big state owned rail company. But there are private companies as well, the low cost option Ouigo España and full service operator Iryo. Renfe's trains are good, but their website isn't the most user friendly and they have a habit of not releasing tickets in a predictable way, so I'd recommend Iryo.
Thank you so much for the train suggestions!!! We will definitely check them out.
