7-9 Day Itinerary help

Sandrews,

I've not visited any caves in Spain, but you certainly have time to visit a few cities in Andalucía if you desire.

You could fly into Madrid, then head straight to Córdoba (2Nights), then travel to Sevilla (3N) or Granada & back to Madrid (3-4N)

You may consider visiting Toledo or Segovia as day trips from Madrid if you have time.

Regarding visiting caves, you may need to do a bit of research & perhaps visit them on another trip.

Enjoy!

I have been to Tito Bustillo, and it was great! It is unlike many other prehistoric caves, where you see reproductions of the caves themselves and the paintings, since you see the actual paintings. At the time I went the tour was in Spanish only, but that may have changed. I would definitely recommend it. But you are looking at a 6 hour drive from Madrid. I'm not sure that is the best use of your limited time.

Segovia is well worth seeing, and you can get there via fast train (AVE) from Madrid in about hour. There is the aqueduct, the cathedral, and alcazar to see.

As far as whether to return from Barcelona or Madrid, you might find more options in Barcelona. I would go with whichever is the best price.

I flew into Madrid and out of Barcelona this summer. You'll need to check your home airport to see which Spanish city offers the best flight options and the best price.

Since you'll be coming from Morocco, I'd suggest an area other than Andalucía just from the standpoint of variety. There are many lovely cities and towns in northern Spain. Segovia's architecture is quite distinctive in addition to having the aqueduct. Farther north you have:

• Burgos: Cathedral, the very attractive old town (lively during the summer, at least), and two monasteries. My favorite was the Cartuja de Miraflores, which has a nice small museum with a stunning "Annunciation" by Berruguete.
• Oviedo: Handsome old town plus several extremely early churches (as old as 9th century).
• Leon: Extremely lively historic district (in summer) as well as the stunning cathedral. You can take a tour of the Renaissance Palacio de Guzmanes.

Smaller towns with distinctive buildings include:

• Comillas, very near the coast well east of Ribadesella, known for several modernist buildings, including one by Gaudi.
• Astorga, inland, with the bishop's palace by Gaudi.
• Gijon, a major coastal city with a small old town and quite a lot of early 20th century buildings in the nearby downtown area.
  

Santillana del Mar with the reproduction of the Altamira Cave is a short drive beyond Comillas. The town itself is on every list of the prettiest towns in Spain. Yes, it is touristy.

Madrid puts you closer to Ribadesella than Barcelona. I assume you'd plan to drive from Madrid or one of the northern airports (if there are decent connections to Oviedo or Leon and you can arrange to drop the car in Madrid). Ground transportation exists but is slow in northern Spain when you're trying to link smaller towns.

Check carefully about visiting hours at the caves you hope to see. They will likely be significantly cut back in November. If English tours are offered, you may find they're only available during peak season. Northern Spain isn't a place too many foreign tourists go in November, I don't think. The weather in all the places I've mentioned (except Segovia) could easily be chilly and wet. Burgos, as I think Rick notes in his book, is surprisingly windy for an inland city.

Unrelated to the interests you mentioned, and I have no idea what the weather would be like in November (beyond "not warm"), but I think the Picos de Europa area (Cantabria/Asturias/ Castilla y Leon) has the prettiest scenery in Spain. Dramatic mountains and ravines. It would be worth inquiring of people who know the local conditions to see whether a day driving through that area would be worthwhile. The old stone town of Potes is charming. But of course it could be dead in November since it's neither hiking nor skiing season.

What airline are you using home to Canada? You may be able to fly from the north, without returning to Madrid or Barcelona. For instance, Lufthansa + Air Canada flies from Bilbao via Frankfurt to Montreal or Ontario.

Adding to Laura's point, depending on your home airport, you may be able to fly home from almost any airport in Spain with one connection - or you may need more connections. Airports like Seville and Malaga have flights to lots of European cities; some smaller Spanish airports will only have flights to Madrid and Barcelona.

So, what is your home airport?

A great trick that I learned on this Forum: to find out who flies where from an airport, look at that airport's Wikipedia page. Doing that for Marrakesh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marrakesh_Menara_Airport#Airlines_and_destinations, I see that your nonstop options from there to Spain are Madrid, Barcelona, and Seville.

For any flight from Morocco to Spain, be sure to do a dummy booking (up to the point before you put in your credit card), to learn all the rules and extra fees. Many airlines on these routes are budget airlines; they have strict baggage limits and will charge extra for all kinds of things. They follow their rules strictly, as that's how they make money - don't be taken by surprise at the airport!

Thank you everyone for your replies and the airport advice. We haven't bought tickets yet. My home airpost is Toronto ON CAN. I'm just going to look into my choices right now. I just hope to avoid long stopovers en route. I thought Madrid or Barcelona would give us the most choice. Thank you, for the advice to check out smaller airports.
I was worried that cheap airlines like ryanair might be problematic for additional charges. I hate traveling under the axe of prearranged plane tickets etc. How easy is it to arrange last minute flights out of Marrakech or on any of the shorter flights?
Canadians are inclined to be car people because our bus and train connections aren't good. I read that public transportation isn't as good in the north of Spain either. Considering the freedom of movement & freedom from train/bus schedules that a car allows, would renting a car in Madrid for 3-4 days and looping north to Cantabria/Bilbao, perhaps dropping the car off in Bilbao, San Sebastion or Barcelona be efficient use of time and funds? Or are trains the most efficient means of travel?

I've never rented a car in Europe, but I think for your purposes picking up a car in Madrid and dropping it in the Basque Country might work well, assuming you don't run into significant drop charges. And that you can drive a manual-transmission car. When you start reading a guidebook, I think you'll want more than 3 or 4 days for that trip, however. These are ViaMichelin's driving-time estimates with no stops, no looking-for-parking time, no time time at the car-rental agency (which reportedly can take far longer in Europe):

Madrid Airport - Segovia: 1.5 hours
Segovia - Ribadesella: 4.8 hours
Ribadesella - Bilbao: 2.8 hours

That route doesn't get you to Burgos, which requires a diversion of at least 1 hour.

Edited to add: I would be afraid to depend on last-minute purchase of a flight. I think the economic risk might be quite high. You can go to skyscanner.com, input your possible flights with tomorrow's date (or wait till Sunday so you can target a weekday flight) and see what pops up. The really cheap fares (that make having to pay for checking bags and all the other hassles acceptable) will probably be long gone if you try to buy flights only a day or two ahead. For short travel legs by bus or train, last-minute decisions have worked out fine for me.

I agree, buying last minute plane tickets will be expensive, even on the budget airlines.