Would a day trip to Granada, Cordoba, Nerja, or Seville be possible or just too jam packed?
The trip is not booked yet, so I am able to add or delete cities/towns with the exception of Tarragona.
Thanks in advance.
Hi Suze, I think that the current version of your itinerary is too jam-packed, even without adding a day trip (I'm counting seven nights).
If you had more time, I would still not recommend doing Granada, Cordoba, Nerja, or Sevilla as day trips - they are too large, with too many things to see - they would require at least a couple nights in each.
There are also no good public transportation options from Alicante to Málaga, the fastest way would be to rent a car.
Personally I would restructure the itinerary like this:
1. Tarragona
2. Tarragona
3. Valencia
4. Valencia
5. Valencia
6. Valencia
7. Alicante
8. Alicante
I would eliminate Málaga as I feel that it is a bit of an outlier here. Why I give so much time to Valencia is that one can rent a car and then use Valencia as a spring board to do some pretty cool day trips.
For example, from Valencia, you could day trip (or side-trip) to:
Cuenca: A UNESCO World Heritage Site, this 12th century medieval town is built on the steep sides of a mountain, which makes for a very unique place to spend a day or two.
-you could also go to-
Peñíscola: Another historic and beautiful town, with its cobbled streets and whitewashed houses, it sits on a big rock that juts out into the sea. The town is dominated by a large Knights Templar castle. It was later home to 15th century Antipope Benedict XIII.
Cuenca would be a great side-trip. It's worth an overnight, or even two nights if you're interested in the two modern-art museums. Otherwise, tackling it on a day-trip requires use of the AVE train. That will likely be too costly for a day-trip if you don't snag one of the promo tickets soon after they go on sale. Those tickets are non-refundable and non-changeable, so you need to be sure of your timing before committing.
Hi Suze,
If you wish to include towns like Granada, Cordoba , Sevilla, Malaga and Nerja into your current itinerary, you may have to do a whole new itinerary to include these places. It is not feasible because of the long distances between some of the towns to include all. However, Malaga can be part of an itinerary. Are you planning to do a combination of trains and buses for transportation or do you plan on renting a car during trip? I would suggest to fly into Granada and fly out of Seville with the open jaw flight logistical plan.
Here is an itinerary that seems logical and has less transportation time between the following cities/towns:
Day 1 Fly into Granada early morning
Day 2 Granada
Day 3 Granada (Day Trip - Bus early morning to Nerja) (2 hr. 6 min)
Day 3 Then from Nerja take bus to Malaga (47 min)
Day 4 Malaga
Day 5 Malaga train to Seville (2hr. 30 min)
Day 6 Seville
Day 7 Seville (Possible Day trip to Osuna Spain, less then 1 hour away by train from Seville, 54 min)
Day 8 Seville Fly out to back to States
