Ciudad Real sits on the AVE high-speed line between Madrid and Seville — the journey from Madrid Atocha takes under an hour, which makes a day trip from the capital genuinely feasible. There are roughly twenty AVE trains a day in each direction.
By road, the A-4 motorway from Madrid takes about two and a half hours by car or by frequent ALSA bus. The city's airport (the famously failed Ciudad Real Central) reopened to limited cargo traffic but remains effectively closed to passenger flights. The nearest international airports are Madrid Barajas and Valencia.