My wife and I are planning a special trip to Southern Spain for a big birthday celebration and we wanted to start with 3 nights [of a 16-18 night trip] at a bed and breakfast very close to Sintra run by friends from Philadelphia. They have a place called Quintadoscoto that looked great. My questions are what to do from there.
One thought was that we arrange to fly round trip Phila-Lisbon and as we leave Quintadoscoto we rent a car in Portugal and drive to Seville -- we would then plan to spend 12-13 nights total in Andalucia [Seville, Cordoba, Grenada - of course] but we'd also like to see some other, a bit off the beaten track sites as well to the extent possible.
We like slower travel so we don't really want to spend less that 3-6 nights in each hotel if we can.
The big question is can we reasonably drive from Sintra, Portugal to Southern Spain and then return to Sintra at the end of the trip to spend our last night before returning to the States through Portugal. Alternatives would otherwise involve flying into one city and out of another or using local planes and trains - from Sintra/Lisbon to Seville - and maybe renting a car in Spain??
Advice please with practical guidance -- I understand the drive between Lisbon and Seville, with border crossing and during September should be doable in about 4-5 hours.