First time trip to Spain- need help with trains!

This is the Renfe English-language website. You can check schedules and buy tickets here. At the moment, January 9th seems to be the latest day for which tickets are available. To price out your planned trip, use the latest available date for the same day of week you want to travel. For Barcelona, use "Barcelona (Todas)". For Madrid, use "Madrid (Todas)". For Seville, use "Sevilla-Santa Justa".

Laguardia doesn't have train service. The closest station seems to be Logroño, from which there is bus service to Laguardia (and onward to Vitoria-Gasteiz). The bus schedules to and from Laguardia are here. Be sure you're looking at the winter schedule.

It will not be particularly easy to coordinate the train/bus schedules on the day you move to Laguardia, but it is workable. Go prepared with a map of Logrono so you are free to wander around a bit if you have extra time. Alternatively, you might opt to stay in Logrono itself.

Laguardia is extremely picturesque, and there were some wine bars open when I visited in mid-summer. Not sure what will be happening in January, though. Have you thought about how you're going to get out to the vineyards from Laguardia? I imagine you'll need a car, won't you?

I wouldn't try to head from Laguardia to Madrid for just two nights if I wanted to spend a day in Toledo; I'd just go straight to Toledo. Madrid's on the way, but a few hours in a city the size of Madrid wouldn't mean much to me. A day and a half in Toledo, on the other hand, would be great.

However, to go from Toledo to Seville by train, you must return to Madrid. You'll probably have to buy separate train tickets for the two legs of that journey. Be sure to allow enough time for the switch. Atocha Station is rather large and some of us find it confusing. You may need to put your bag through a quick security check before boarding the train to Seville.

Great tips! Thank you so much!

RENFE normally doesn't issue tickets more than about 60 days in advance. It is a good idea to purchase tickets you can commit to ahead of time to get discounted rates.

When getting tickets on RENFE, use the Paypal option as US credit cards often don't work, no matter what steps you take.

Not sure how you'll explore wineries without a car or tour. I would check operation hours too to avoid showing up with no one open.

A daytrip to Toledo with just 2 nights in Madrid will be tough to fit in, but then again you can decide that on the fly as advance train tickets aren't relevant for that trip.

Read this excellent article which will guide you through the intricacies of the Renfe website. A good site for all European train schedules is bahn.de. The Renfe site is really quirky about when tickets are offered for sale (which is when they appear on the site). I have seen trains pop up only a week or so in advance, even though they are regularly scheduled trains similar to others that show up weeks in advance. I've also seen trains pop up much further out than the stated 62 days advance sale.

The only train service to Toledo is the commuter train from Madrid's Atocha station. 2 nights in Madrid gives you one full day there. If you want to use it to go to Toledo, you should skip Madrid and just go to Toledo. Which brings me to the main issue I see with your plan, that you don't have much time anywhere. 3 nights is not equivalent to 3 days. Even if you land early in the morning and have no delays, you will have to get from the airport to your hotel to at least drop your luggage before going out. You'll be jetlagged and "draggy" - how much sleep can you get on the flight anyway? Then you have 2 full days in this amazing city. Day 4, you'll use half of the day just getting to Laguardia. It looks like there's a 7.30 train from Barcelona to Logrono, then taxi to Laguardia, which probably means getting up at 6 am to get to Laguardia around noon. If you only stay one night, then you'll need half of the next day just to get to Madrid.