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You are here: Experts > Food/Drink > Spanish Cuisine > Travel to Spain > Rental car/train from Madrid to south
Travel to Spain - Rental car/train from Madrid to south
Expert: Víctor Díaz - 10/3/2008
Question
Hi, We will be arriving in Madrid on Nov 6th and will be leaving Nov 24th. Current plan is to immediately upon arrival in Madrid, take a train to Toledo and spend some time, then another train to Cordoba (or Granada). We would then rent a car, drive around the south of Spain and include Ronda, Seville and some of the white towns. Drive back north stopping in Merida, and other places, dropping the car in Segovia and taking a train back to Madrid. So, some questions:
- do we need an international driving license?
- would it make sense to look into a car/train plan?
- do we need to make train travel arrangements before we leave home? I know we need to do the car rental in advance, what about train tickets?
- should we take the train to Cordoba or Granada?
- What's with the day trip to Morocco -- is is worth it?
- can you suggest specific towns to visit?
- does the plan look do-able
Thanks so much for any help you can provide.
Answer
Hello Charlotte
1-IDL is not necessary for people from EU countries and some other non EU countries like swiss and norway. In other case the IDL is in theory compulsory, but it may be required only by police if they stop you, not necessary to rent a car.
2-car/train question, i don't know what exactly are you asking for (i apologize for my english, which is far from perfect)
probably you referr to rent a car when needed and use trains the rest of time and look into using more trains. To move from a main city to other, trains are normally a good option, but depends also on the distance. Cars are ok to visit the coutryside where public transport is poor. For your plan, i think that a car is a good option, but in some big cities you'll need hotels with parking.
3-depends on the dates (fridays and sundays may be more complicated for travelling) but in november it's low season and there shouldn't be any problem. High speed train to Toledo gets full booked many times in summer, but probably not in november. for some trains you have discounts by purchasing online and in advance, not the case of toledo line. Probably you would get discounts in the train to Granada or Cordoba.
To get an idea if the trains get full booked or not, check the renfe site for the trains you are expecting to use, but instead of the dat in november, choose the same day of week in the next days, if the train have seats available, then in november will have for sure.
4-Cordoba can be done easily as a daytrip from Sevilla. I would go first to Granada by train, enjoy the city and Alhambra (book in advance for Alhambra) and then rent a car when leaving the city or even later in this part of the trip. (read below)
http://www.alhambra-patronato.es/index.php/Como-visitar-la-Alhambra/8+M5d637b1e3...
5-daytrip to Marruecos (morrocco) i think this daytrip involves moving to Algeciras, having a car this time made it very easy, then take a ferry to Tanger. You should leave the car in spain as probably the renting won't let you move the car out of EU. Haven't been in Tanger ever, but i know is not one of the main interesting sites of Morrocco. Many people do this daytrip and enjoy it, just to say the have been in Africa. There are also some tours offered in the area of Costa del Sol in hotels to made this trip. This tour is advisable if you just rely on public transport, but if you have your car to get to Algeciras you could do this by yourself.
Look for information of what to see and do in Tanger and judge by yourself if interesting or not, what's not interesting for some people may be a perfect trip for others!.
5-and 6: yes the plan is doable.
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Here is my review on it:
day
6 -arrive and move inmediately to Toledo. Best option is by train, but if for some reason there aren't trains available you could get there also by buses. It's about 60km so by bus is not a bad option.
Train departure is from Atocha station. To get there from airport, by taxi would be about 25euros and by metro 2euros. Metro station is called Atocha-Renfe.
Buses to Toledo depart from Estacion Sur Autobuses, not too far from Atocha (not to go walking though), metro station Mendez Alvaro.
Overnight in Toledo
7 (friday)-visit Toledo, the same day you could move to Granada, so you must get to Madrid first and take another train to Granada, only a couple of trains daily.
train/dep/arrival
ALTARIA 09214 07.40 12.16
ALTARIA 09234 17.05 21.37
cost 57.40 if you buy online and in advance. 61,80 in the station.
You can visit Toledo in the morning and move in time to get that train, departure from Atocha station.
this train for example
AVANT 08153 15.30 16.00 cost 9euros
next one arrives at 17.30, too late to take the train to Granada
You could also change the travel to get to Cordoba first, as there are many more trains daily to this city.
8-visit Alhambra and Granada
9-(sunday) Granada if you have something left to see and move to Sevilla, by train, no need to get the car by the moment.
10-monday-Sevilla, visit the city, somethings may be closed.
for example Alcazar, leave it for the next days
http://www.patronato-alcazarsevilla.es/index.php?ver=-1
11-tuesday visit Alcazar and the rest of Sevilla, what about Italica?
http://www.turismo.sevilla.org/paginas_es/portada.asp
http://www.juntadeandalucia.es/cultura/museos/CAI/index.jsp?redirect=S2_1.jsp&ln...
12-rent the car and do the white villages route (including Arcos de la Frontera), ending in Ronda, overnight in Ronda (or do a daytrip to Cordoba by train).
13-Ronda. If you still plan a daytrip to Morrocco, stay in Ronda and visit Malaga or Jerez by car
14-friday-Here possible daytrip to Morrocco. Or move to Cordoba.
15-saturday-Cordoba, and visit ruins of Medina Azahara (thats why you neeed the car here) You may do this visit to Medina with a tour offered by the toursim office of Cordoba, in case you do Cordoba as a daytrip. Overnight in cordoba
From here on dates may vary depending if you do the Marrocco daytrip or not.
16-sunday-move to Merida, some towns where you could do brief stops: Zafra, Jerez de Los Caballeros.
http://www.turismoextremadura.com/htmlintro1024/intro1024.htm
you'll be following partially the 'via de la plata' route
http://turismo-en.sigimo.com/viaplata/index.php?id=1052
17-monday-Merida-the museum of roman art is closed, looks very interesting to me, this could made you stay until tuesday morning to visit it.
http://www.turismoextremadura.com/localidades/index.php?id=548
18-tuesday-merida and leave to Caceres in the afternoon
19-Caceres
20-leave Caceres early in the morning, visit Trujillo and Guadalupe monastery in your way to Segovia.
21-Segovia, don't return the car yet, use it to visit La Granja palace and return to Madrid via Navacerrada pass, nice views.
Return the car in Madrid.
22-Madrid, until 24.
That's a first idea of what to do visit and when, plan carefully sundays and mondays as many things may be closed on sundays afternoon and mondays.
Returning to Madrid via extremadura and by car is a good choice, many places to visit in Extremadura and yet unknown to many tourists.
I hope this helps a bit.
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