We're going to be doing a good deal of traveling around Spain in July and want to know what to expect with trains and buses. Which should we do? Are buses reliable? Cheaper? Do we need to buy bus tickets ahead of time? Train tickets?
We're going from Madrid<-->Toledo, Madrid-->Seville, and Seville-->Granada.
What would you recommend?

We are also going from Barcelona to Southern France, and are considering doing an overnight train. How are they? Is it worth it?

Thanks!
Adam

My husband and I took the AVE (FAST!) train from Cordoba to Madrid. No need for tickets ahead of time. It left hourly. This train runs from Sevilla to Cordoba to Madrid and is the way to go if you are traveling by train. The local trains are slower. No need for advance tickets either but make sure you have a map of the train system. It seemed confusing and takes alot longer to get from place to place if you don't memorize the schedule. We didn't use buses. Took the subway in Madrid with no problem. Rented a car and drove all over Spain for the other part of our trip with only very minor problems finding our way around. The roads are great.

The Secorbus/Socibus Madrid-Sevilla takes about 5.5 hours and costs about ESP 3.000. AVE (turista/llano) costs ESP 9.900 and the Talgo-200 costs about ESP 7.600. So if cost is the deciding factor, the bus is the way to go.
Buses are W/C equipped and are comfortable.

[ 06-10-2001: Message edited by: Antonio ]

We took a bus from Madrid to Toledo (no problems at all).

When we first arrived in Madrid we reserved (at the airport) our seats for the AVE train to Cordoba. There are plenty of trains, but we want reserved seats in the non-smoking train at a certain time.

The AVE trains are very, very comfortable, and of course very fast. I love trains!

We took the AVE from Cordoba to Sevilla as well. When we arrived in Sevilla I wanted to book the train to Granada, but the line at the RENFE office was very long, and there was only a 16:15 train in the afternoon which didn't suit our needs.

In the end we took the bus from Sevilla to Granada (3 hours) and did not book this in advance. By chance we arrived in the bus station half an hour before the bus left and had no problem getting tickets for the 12:00 bus (the next one was at 15:00).

When we arrived in Granada we reserved our bus trip back to Madrid.

In short, we found both the buses and trains very comfortable - and if you want to work things out on a tight schedule, best to book things out in advance.

Best,
Ellis

There's a service called the Catalán Talgo which runs from Barcelona to Montpellier. You can find out more on the Renfe site.