We’ll stay in Toledo on our last night in Spain and need to catch the mid-morning flight back to the US. Want to avoid all the rush hour traffic. How best to travel from Toledo to the Madrid Barajas airport with public transportation? Should we return to Madrid the night before?

You can take the train but it will leave you at Atocha station.Then you will have to take either the cercanias train or metro to get to the airport.
The bus is another option but you will still face the challenge to get from the bus station by metro to the airport.
I would stay in Madrid and book aeroshuttle to get you to the airport. They know what time to pick you up to get you to the airport on time.

AVE train from Toledo to Madrid.
Walk downstairs to Metro station (Atocha Renfe).
Take Metro to station Tribunal (Line 1).
While at station Tribunal, transfer to Line 10 and head to station Nuevos Ministerios.
While at station Nuevos Ministerios, transfer to Line 8 and head to airport (station Barajas).
Make your way from Metro to airline ticketing/check-in.

The first part of this is quick enough, a 30 minute high speed AVE train from Toledo to Madrid - so staying in central Madrid (as opposed to near airport) only saves you less than an hour.

Not sure how long the complete Toledo hotel (is it close to Toledo train station?) to Madrid airport journey would take. Hopefully, someone here can give you a realistic estimate.

Also not sure what mid-morning means. Does that mean being at airport at 7am for a 10am flight?

The metro transfer is a bit long and there are plenty of stairs between L1 and L10 at Tribunal. Also, both lines are pretty crowded in the morning.

I would get the Cercanías between Atocha and Nuevos Ministerios and then change to L8. Much quicker.

Rgds, Cova

I did this trip in reverse last month using Cercanias. A few years ago I did some metro transfer with lots of stairs. I totally agree with cova - take the Cercanias, not the metro for that leg of the route.

However, if by mid-morning you mean about 10:30, I would consider staying in Madrid the night before. When does the earliest train leave Toledo on Sunday morning?

Thank you for all the responses. We have an 11:30am flight. It's a toss up between spend the night in Toledo or in Madrid. It takes 30 minutes train ride from Toledo to Madrid. We just want to avoid the rush hour traffic and try to get to the airport by 9:30am.

We are returning into madrid, Atocha for a flight on a sunday afternoon, needing to be at Barajas by 1500. No one has mentioned taking a taxi? Are they very expensive? Do you think we can easily get one outside of the train station?

It's a long trip to Madrid. This site estimates 128 Euros for a taxi:
http://www.worldtaximeter.com/madrid...Barajas/toledo

Thanks for the web site. very informative. I meant taxi from Atocha station in Madrid to airport in Madrid. There are 5 of us and the taxis may be too small.

I would expect the taxi from Atocha to the airport to be around 35 Euros per car.

There are huge numbers of taxis outside the Atocha train station.

So teatravel you will arrive at Atocha at a pretty busy time of the morning-rush hour and it and the metro will be very crowded......