Transportation Between Cities

Madrid to Toledo: Train (about 30 min.) is faster than bus; bus station is closer to historic center in Toledo, but there is local transportation to get you up there from either station. I walked from the bus station pulling a rather heavy suitcase, so I know that's not to onerous a task. There are escalators so you don't have to climb much under your own power.

Toledo to Seville: Train (just under 4 hours) is much, much faster than bus even though you must return to Madrid to get the AVE train to Seville. Toledo is on a dead-end spur line.

Seville to Granada: Don't think there's too much time difference here, but as of now the train trip includes a bus segment. It's reportedly seamless, but you might prefer the simplicity of sticking with a single form of transportation. Bus might be less expensive than even an advance-purchase train ticket; I haven't checked. I also haven't looked at the locations of the bus and train stations in Seville and Granada. That might make one mode of transportation significantly more attractive if you are planning to just to take a taxi to your hotel. Train time is about 3:20 to about 4 hours.

Edited to add correction: Now that I've looked at the ALSA bus schedule, I see that a bus may well get you to Granada faster; there are quite a lot of buses scheduled to take just 3 hours. The buses are quite comfortable.

Schedule link for the trains: RENFE.

To add to Acraven's excellent reply:

The bus station in Granada is further out than the train station. From either one, there are buses to the center, or you can take a taxi. In Spain, taxis are reliable and not expensive, so I usually take them from the station to my hotel and back.

For Toledo to Seville, as Acraven says you will have to change in Madrid Atocha station. High speed AVE trains leave Atocha from two different levels. If your train from Toledo arrives at the same level as the one your train to Seville will leave from, just stay in the lounge (there's seating, food and drink for sale, etc). If you have to change levels, there is an elevator that connects the lounges, behind security. By using this elevator, you not only do not have to go through security again, you don't risk getting lost in the maze that is Atocha station. The elevator is outside the lounge next to the tracks, in the high number tracks area. If you don't see it, ask for it.

Due to this elevator, a 30 minute "connection" in Atocha works fine.

If you are looking at Renfe's website http://www.renfe.com/EN/viajeros/index.html , it may not show all the connections between Toledo and Seville if you look for these as one itinerary. When I went from Toledo to Barcelona, Renfe only showed two options all day, even though I knew there were many more. I found all of my options on the Bahn (German rail) website https://reiseauskunft.bahn.de//bin/query.exe/en, then booked the tickets separately (Toledo to Madrid and Madrid to Barcelona).

Buying train tickets in Spain can be an adventure. I was able to get Renfe's site to work, but only with this tutorial from TripAdvisor: https://www.tripadvisor.com/Travel-g187514-c80518/Madrid:Spain:Buying.Renfe.Tickets.Online.html And don't waste time trying to use your credit card; Paypal works well while credit cards don't. In the end, I realized it took me FIVE websites to book the tickets - Renfe, Bahn, Paypal, TripAdvisor, and Rick Steves (to learn about the others). But it did work.

If you don't want the hassle, others report that it is much easier now to use Trainline https://www.thetrainline.com/ or Loco2 https://loco2.com/

In Madrid, I stayed at Hostal Acapulco http://www.hostalacapulco.com/ (If it is in Spanish, click the British flag for English). Note that in Spain, an hostal is not a hostel; it's what in other places would be called a guesthouse or pension. The room was small but perfectly serviceable. The only catch is, while I made my reservation by email in English with no problems, at the hotel I had to use Spanish. If you want to be sure of English speaking desk staff, you will want to stay somewhere else. But you can't beat the price; in 2015, I paid €57 for a single, in the heart of Madrid!

In Toledo, I stayed at the Hotel Santa Isabel https://www.hotelsantaisabeltoledo.es/ (use Google Translate if you need English). This is a bit south of the major sights, but still a close walk to them. Here the staff spoke some English. There are great views from the roof. Again, it's a steal - €35 in 2015, for a single including breakfast!

My stays in Granada and Seville were in 2006. I stayed in places recommended by Rick, but don't remember details.

I was able to pay for a train ticket on the RENFE site with my US credit card a few weeks ago, but I agree that it was a rather hair-raising experience altogether, because you see a lot of webpages that are not in English. I know a bit of Spanish, but not enough to have been comfortable with the process. I was prepared to resort to PayPal, but I didn't need to.

I did notify my credit card company ahead of time that I'd be making a purchase from a Spanish website. I don't know whether or not that was necessary.

For me, when I attempted to use my credit card, the transaction did not go through. I then called the credit card company, who said they never got the transaction (in other words, they didn't reject it - they never got it to decide to accept or reject it). Apparently, this is common. So, if you do want to use Renfe's website, and you have some extra time, you can try your card - but if you want to save time, you can just use Paypal from the start. Or, as I said above, use another website. Loco2 used to have a small extra charge; it now seems that they do not. Trainline never had any surcharges.

www.loco2.com is very easy to use with no mark ups- it will show you buses and trains- create a free account- pay in dollars, euros, pounds, whatever you prefer- print at home tickets or mobile- I highly recommend.

Happy Travels✨💫

I would not advise paying in dollars on loco2 unless you have checked the official fare in local currency (on RENFE's website in this case) and can confirm that you will be paying the dollar equivalent without an excessive conversion fee. I am not casting aspersions on loco2 (which I have never needed to use) in particular. It's just that most of the time when you pay in dollars on a foreign website, you are not getting a good deal on the currency conversion. And if the charge comes through from a foreign website and your credit card company has foreign transaction fees, those will not be waived just because you paid in dollars. It will still be considered a foreign transaction. So there's a risk you'll be hit twice--once with a bad conversion rate and once by your credit card company.

I agree with acraven to pay for train tickets in Euros. I also stayed at Santa Isabel in Toledo. It's really inexpensive and they do provide a very basic breakfast. The views from the roof were incredible and the staff person made some great recommendations. The high speed train to Sevilla was comfortable and efficient. In Sevilla I liked the El Rey Moro inn. Very well located, local charm. We drove from Sevilla to Granada so we could experience the white villages. Since we did take the "train" to Cordoba from Granada, we did experience the switch from bus to train. It is seamless, but you do have to wait until the next train/bus. We ended up waiting a good 45 minutes. Hence, I would agree that it makes more sense to do the entire stretch by bus. I've not done the ALSA bus, but the bus provided by RENFRE to get to Antequerra was comfortable except every seat was full and the racks were not big enough for my backpack (my carryon suitcase was stored in the luggage compartment underneath the bus) In Granada, we stayed in the Hotel Anacapri. It was lovely and well located. We got our breakfast included by booking directly with the inn and mentioning RS. That also could have been the case at El Rey Moro and Santa Isabel where we also had an included breakfast. The breakfasts at El Rey Moro were wonderful, and Anacapri's was pretty nice too.