28 days in Spain-base locations

Barcelona, Madrid, Sevilla. North, Center, and South. If you are spending 28 days you will almost certainly want to plan to take a night or two away from your pied-a-tere on each longer excursion... so plan for that. It will be a great time.

Since you’re not planning on bouncing around to a new place every few nights, but lingering for a week or so, plan on either north or south. While Spain has wonderful locations in the northern half of the country, for a first trip, I’d suggest Madrid, then look to the southern half.

That time of year, I’m guessing you’re not looking for beach destinations. Definitely base in Granada. I’d then add Seville and/or Malaga.

My first thought when faced with that situation is: Which cities have many days of attractions themselves, before I have to starting taking day trips? The answer to that is that Barcelona, Madrid and Seville will probably keep a visitor busy longer, locally, than other places. They are a good start. I wouldn't put Seville at the beginning of the trip, because that part of Spain could still be quite hot in September.

Madrid has an unusually long list of top-level day-trip destinations, though I'd argue that many of them are worth multiple nights:

• Toledo
• Segovia
• Cuenca (buy train ticket well ahead to be sure of reasonable fare)
• Alcala de Henares
• Chinchon
• El Escorial (where I haven't been)

I'm not fond enough of Avila to day-trip there by public transportation. With a car and passing nearby, sure, I'd stop and walk on the wall.

Barcelona also has good day-trips:

• Girona
• Figueres for the Dali Theatre-Museum
• Montserrat (I've never been there)
• Sitges and other beach towns
• Tarragona (has Roman ruins; I've never been there)

Seville day-trips:

• Cordoba (a couple of nights would be better)
• Carmona
• Jerez for sherry and horses (I've never been there)

There are other possibilities from each of those bases.

You might like to spend some time in the Basque Country, though you'd need to pick your base carefully for ease of travel to the particular destinations you wanted to hit.

Granada's not really a smart day-trip from anywhere of importance, I don't think. You could stay there for a bit less than a week and day-trip, as I did, to Priego de Cordoba. I also took a bus up into the Alpujarras, though I just wandered around couple of small towns rather than hiking.

Spain has very interesting cities and towns all over, but it's a large country, so what you propose to do is somewhat limiting.