Hello. I am planning our trip to Costa del Sol this March with help of the recently purchased Fodor's Essential Spain and these Forums. I am trying to book a train from Malaga to Madrid. I have been on the Renfe website and also on the LOCO2 website. I can't find a direct train at all, and that's ok. But the LOCO2 website is much easier to understand. Is it safe to buy tickets from there or should I continue to try on Renfe? If I can't get a direct train I am thinking we would take the train to Cordoba and stay for one day then train the next day up to Madrid. We fly home from Madrid and want two nights there before leaving for the airport. Can we see enough in one day in Cordoba? (We are mid 60s and not as fast as we used to be!). thank you. .

direct trains every two hours - see www.bahn.de/en for easy to reference schedules but can't book there - keep trying and yes Loco is recommended by experts here as they sell at about same prices renfe.com does and easier for many to use. Check www.seat61.com for lots of help on booking - general info trains BETS-European Rail Experts and www.ricksteves.com.

Cordoba is great but in one day I was satisfied I saw enough of it - others may disagree.

We purchased all of our train tickets from Loco2 when we traveled to Madrid and Andalucia in September 2017. I highly recommend them. As you mentioned, their website is easy to understand and they are very reliable and prompt.

I definitely recommend spending at least one night in Cordoba. We were there for 2 nights, but one night is better than just a day trip. The Mezquita is amazing, but there is more to Cordoba than just the Mezquita. We enjoyed the Alcazar gardens, Roman Bridge, wandering the Juderia, and Palacio de Viana. Cordoba is very pretty and romantic at night with the Roman Bridge and Mezquita all lit up.

Loco2 is fine for Renfe tickets - it has implemented a connection to Renfe's system, so same prices, no mark-up and no added fee. But a lot less quirky and no rejected credit cards which Renfe.com is notorious for.

You have to let RENFE fill in the "official" train station names on the search box (many airline websitews work that way also), which you get by typing a few letters to get the dropdown list. Malaga is Malaga Maria Zambrano.

However, I suspect the real problem is that RENFE hasn't opened those tickets for sale yet, they only will allow sales up to 30 days ahead (at least on that route on their website). So the last date you can find today will be 3/3/19. There are plenty of trains if you check dates in February, for example. If you can't find them on LOCO2 either, it wouldn't surprise me that they have the same rules. At least that's the situation right now, there may be times when RENFE loads them sooner but sometimes they are late putting up their ticket sales, in my experience.

I used LOCO2 for my October trip and had no problems, but, as mentioned above, you can only book so far out.

As far as Cordoba goes, if you've got the time to spend a night, I would do that--the Mezquita is less crowded in the late afternoon, once the tourist buses have left. However, if a daytrip is all your schedule will allow (which was our situation), that's still worth doing.

Thank you so much for the replies. This is very helpful information.