Has anyone considered this to get to Atocha relatively quickly but without Metro transfers?
Taxi from the airport to Pinar de Chamartín metro(about 8 miles)or Chamartín (about 10 miles) and then take #1 Metro to Atocha without any transfers. I'm not sure what taxi would cost.
If we can't get open-jaw tickets we may need to fly into Madrid and then go immediately to Barcelona and would like to minimize difficulty of getting to Atocha but don't want to pay €25+ for a taxi. We would end our trip in Madrid.
We would also consider just flying from Madrid to Barcelona.