For my upcoming trip to Spain, I was planning to go to Toledo one day and maybe Segovia another. Now, I have an opportunity to go to Cordoba. I have always wanted to see the Mezquita there. I have been to both Toledo and Segovia before, but never Cordoba. However, I am traveling with my son who has been to none of those places. What do you recommend? Keep to the plan and save Cordoba? Ditch the plan and go to Cordoba? Also, is it pretty easy to buy a last minute train ticket to Cordoba? I went on the renfe website and it looks like there are lots of options for a one day trip. Thanks, experts. I look forward to your input.

I choose Toledo and Segovia, two of my favorite cities...

It´s easy to get a rail ticket to Córdoba as it´s on the way to the bigger destination of Granada .. however a 1 day journey would be exhausting ... I would say that it would be better to spend 2 days and go to Granada . Without doubt a great city .. and , of course , you get to see the Alhambra .. a World Heritage Site .
And as for your son .. Toledo may be a better bet than Segovia ( though I personally prefer Segovia ) . Toledo is bigger , has a deep military background .. the army school is there .. and , of course , has the famous sword/knife shops .. ( Sort of more masculine hahahaha ) Whilst at the same time being able to enjoy the cathedral .. extraordinary .. and the art ( including paintings by El Greco and Caraviaggio ) . Yeah .. I would definitely choose Toledo for you and your son .
Just as an aside .. The last time I went to Toledo was last summer with a friend from the USAF .. he travelled over from Baltimore ... He loved it !

You wont go wrong choosing neither of those cities. Really it all depends on what you really like to see and time. Hard to choose for me anyway,love them all.

don't forget," Avila", is also a world heritage site, 115 kilometers from Madrid

The thing I'm finding is that if I buy a train ticket to Cordoba in advance on the internet (renfe website) it seems to be much less expensive. I don't know if I should do that now. I'm leaning towards saving Cordoba for next time and doing Toledo and Segovia instead. If you have any advice about buying train tickets, let me know. Do you people who live in Spain buy them on the Internet? Have any of the United Statesens out there bought tickets in advance on the renfe site?

Gracias!

you can buy the train ticket in advance online get better rates usually. not too much into trains but I believe thats the way it is.So for Cordoba it would be better if you can decide ahead and buy online ahead of time.

I'm in the UK
Last year we purchased all of our train travel online and printed off our tickets....and at a very considerable saving.
Madrid- Valencia
Valencia- Barcelona
Madrid-Toledo (return)
Madrid-Avila (return)

For the Valencia- Barcelona leg we had Preferential(sic)at a comparable rate to standard tickets!!

This is a tough decision. Perhaps one way to look at it is that you can't go wrong because someday you'll be back to go to the places you did not visit during the current trip.

During one visit, I took a day to Toledo and another to Segovia, and enjoyed them both immensely. These are relatively easy day trips from Madrid. Going to Cordoba, I would stay at least one night.

For some interesting old photos of Cordoba and Toledo's cathedrals, see this link: http://bentpage.wordpress.com/2008/09/22/compare-and-contrast-spain/

And for the standard photo of Segovia aqueduct see: http://bentpage.wordpress.com/2008/06/20/the-romans-built-this/

Enjoy the journey.

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Agree with Jazz, Avila also is a great place to visit. The train journey is very scenic too.