DiverDriver

Trying to book early morning (departing prior to 8 AM) Train or Bus travel from Granada to Cordoba but can't find any that leave before 9 AM.

I do see 2 trains (departing at ~6:45 AM) in the Renfe website alone, but can't book Renfe using my US issued credit cards and have been relying on Petrabax - which, for some reason, does not show this earlier train.

Buses I've searched for so far, don't depart before 9:45 AM either.

Traveling with one more person, so monetarily, a one way car rental kind of amounts to the same cost as 2 train tickets.

Am really trying to get to Cordoba a little early, to get the sights in leisurely before catching a 3 pm train to Madrid.

Any ideas or should I stick with the car rental? Thanks!

WomBatt

Many from outside Europe have difficulty with their credit cards with RENFE. Have you advised your finance house of the forthcoming transaction(s)? Could be you should be signed up for Verified by Visa or Mastercard Securecode as well. Paypal is available. No idea about Petrabax, but it is a private agency and may, like several agencies do, be trying to force you into a position where you buy a more expensive journey.
No idea why you have not easily discovered, but there is one journey by bus, but probably does not suit, at 0830 hours with www.alsa.es

JR14

If you definitely want to get there early, a car rental might be the best option. Granada's a small city and not all that well connected by train/bus (i.e. you won't have the same kind of flexibility you'd have in a big city like Madrid or Barcelona).

LupineChemist

Well, there will be a direct AVE to Córdoba/Madrid this year (supposedly) still waiting to see if it's true. But hey, lots of stuff gets done right before elections so there's that.

It's unlikely to be of use to this thread, but keep it in mind for anyone in the future.

lionmb

I am not any kind of expert on this topic, but we needed to take a train from Madrid to Barcelona this June. I was able to do it quite easily on Loco2 which is a booking company. You can use US debit or credit cards and it walks you through the whole process. Maybe you can try them? I think it is simply loco2.com.

MB

Reindeerflame

The 645am departure from Granada has a change of trains at Antequera, while the 910am is a direct through train. Petrobax does show the individual segments and appears to allow booking of them separately.

In all likelihood, they are featuring the direct trains for Granada-Cordoba, perhaps on a theory that most will prefer those.

DiverDriver

I don't see the 8:30 AM buses for later in April, maybe just need to wait till they open up.
Will wait for the bus, or fall back to the car rental to be sure.

Thanks everyone!

WomBatt

Ah, until now there was no mention of 'for later in April'.

BahrainLad

Be warned - Granada will be completely cut off from the railway network from early April, for 6 months, whilst they rebuild the station to be able to accept AVE high speed trains (these have a different track gauge to the standard Spanish lines).

The only options to get to Granada from Cordoba are train+bus (via Antquera) or bus/car direct.

Palal

corrected that for you

HelloItsMe

Hi BL,
Do you know if the work has started and if they are expected to finish on-schedule? We are planning a rail trip Madrid - Granada - Seville - Madrid in the early part of November.

LupineChemist

The work has indeed just started.

As far as expecting to complete on schedule...well, slippage doesn't happen at the start of works. That said, they want to finish before an election and that's a hard deadline of November. So we'll see.

JR14

Construction delays in Granada tend to be pretty epic. HelloItsMe, you might want to look into buses for your trip -- Alsa should have comfortable buses running between Madrid, Granada, and Seville.

HelloItsMe

Thanks for this! I just downloaded the Alsa app and there are a number of good options on these routes. I might go ahead and pick the premium bus from Madrid to Granada even if the construction is complete just to have that experience.
I used Pesa just a few weeks about between Bilbao and San Sebastian and was impressed at how often they ran and how punctual they were.

JR14

The premium bus between Madrid and Granada is really comfortable! Recommended

And the only times I've had trouble with buses in Spain was when I was traveling between cities north of Madrid. In four years in southern Spain, they've actually been really reliable.