Interesting Experience Booking Tickets With Renfe

[lazydragon]

I'm heading out to Spain next week, and had been keeping an eye on the trains running from Madrid to Leon (where I'm meeting my old man to complete the Camino de Santiago, which he started last week). I've seen the trains available on the site for a few weeks, each time telling me (at least my interpretation of the Google Translate) in Spanish that the train was not yet taking bookings.

Once again, with the help of Google Translate, I send them an email telling them that I had been trying to book for a few weeks, and that we were less than two weeks until the travel date, and it still wasn't available for booking.

Fair play, they did respond in English (they were probably using the same translation software!) to advise that the tickets hadn't been released due to technical work, but to check back regularly and they should be there before I traveled. Lo and behold! Two minutes after reading the email, I log on with very little hope, and the train I wanted was now available to book!

Anyone with any experience of using Renfe? To me it just looked like someone forgot to click the button to switch ticket booking for that route on, and I reminded them to pull their fingers out!

 

[Monkey Magic]

I found it dead easy to get them when we were there. The ticket machines are available in english which helps.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Anyone with any experience of using Renfe? To me it just looked like someone forgot to click the button to switch ticket booking for that route on, and I reminded them to pull their fingers out!

I just got back from a trip to Galicia, and they were very late releasing bookings for any of the trains in the north of Spain (anything out of Chamartin basically).
They did all appear 2-3 weeks in advance though.

Santiago de Compostela was great, though the local farmers had blocked the main roads into the city with tractors for a couple of days, protesting about the price of milk!
On my train from Santiago to Madrid there were a good number of pilgrims complete with staffs and shells, having a fast ride home.
There should be a fine guitar band giving an evening concert in the cathedral cloisters, complete with Galician pipes.

 

[lazydragon]

Thanks for the tip on the guitar band...hoping to have a day in Santiago to spend relaxing, depending on my feet holding out and carrying me at a decent pace!

We would have liked to book the train out of Santiago too, but eventually the fact that we were getting close to the trip, and Renfe didn't release journeys very early, we eventually went for flights on the way home. With going through customs etc, the flight from Santiago to Madrid seems like a bit of a waste and not any shorter than the train, but c'est la vie. Had to get it all booked and out of the way.