Andalusia/Madrid itinerary feedback

I think your time allotments are good. You can't do everything in ten days. If you fall in love with southern Spain, you'll be back.

I do want to warn you that early September can be very hot in that area. If you have some date flexibility, you might want to push the trip a bit later in the year. You can see actual, historical, day-by-day weather data on timeanddate.com. I've given you a link to Seville (your hottest city) in September 2021, but you should check a few additional years as well.

I agree with acraven, about both the time allotted to each place as well as the potentially very warm September weather. On my last trip to Granada and eastern Andalucía in early September 2014 the temperature was in the 90s every day.

I like your allotment of time as well. Normally I recommend spending at least one night in Cordoba. But because 10 nights is not a lot, I think in your case, you are better off visiting Cordoba as a day trip from Seville. Less packing and unpacking and checking into hotels. If the train schedule permits, take an evening train back to Seville. Cordoba is beautiful in the evenings when the daytrippers have left and the city is illuminated.

I would not drop a night in Madrid to visit Ronda. Madrid has some outstanding art museums along with other interesting sites, such as the Royal Palace and Retiro Park, and is a pleasant city for wandering and exploring.

If you could move your dates to mid-September to end of September, that would be better regarding the heat. We were there in mid September to early October in 2017. Temps were generally in the 80's every place we visited, except for Seville which was in the low to mid 90's.

Thank you for all the help! Feeling much better about the itinerary. We have the option to push the trip to mid-November. Would this be preferable to September in terms of weather?

In a word, yes

Toledo is a convenient day trip from Madrid by direct train (45-minutes) so I suggest staying in Madrid an extra night. I’ve done both and did not feel a night in Toledo was worth it, everything shuts down.

We had to cut our trip short a day due to airfare costs and were planning a night in Toledo because others on the blog felt that it is best seen in the evening. What do others think? Should we just do a day trip? What is special about Toledo in the evenings?

Toledo in the evenings doesn’t have the thousands of day trippers. The streets are quiet and you can walk around without continually bumping into people.

Toledo is also beautiful at night when the city is illuminated. In our experience in September 2017 Toledo did not shut down when the tourists left. Zocodaver Plaza was lively with locals and Spanish families with young children riding bikes. Everyone was out for ice cream. Restaurants, cafes, bars, and stores were open.

Any place that's a highly popular day trip is likely to have plenty to see that will justify spending the night. That's an understatement in the case of Toledo. One reason to spend the night is simply to have more time to see what's there; the historic area is very large (and not flat). Secondly, when you daytrip to a massively popular day-trip destination, you spend much of your time in a throng of other day-trippers, simply because everyone wants to go to a lot of the same places during the same, compressed hours of the day. That's not a good way to experience an atmospheric destination like Toledo.

If you end up choosing the day-trip option, I urge you make a point of getting off the direct path between Zocodover Square and the cathedral.

Very good advice above 👆. Toledo (and other places that are so popular they are being loved to death) are best visited NOT on a day trip, rather by spending at least one night there -- the best time to be there is when the day-trippers are not. The same is true for many places (Mont St Michel, Carcasonne, Cinque Terre, and many more).

In the case of Toledo, this is especially true. All the big "package tours" to Spain go to Madrid, for understandable reasons. Almost every one of those tours offers Toledo as a day trip excursion, because the logistics for doing Toledo as a day trip are perfectly optimized: fast, efficient, sleek high-speed trains (or a slightly less sleek tour bus) will efficiently whisk you from Madrid and deposit you in Toledo for a few hours, then return you back to Madrid in a neat, simple, one-day package. It's perfect as a day trip (well, for the tour promoters...). So everybody does that, they spend half a day in Toledo from their base in Madrid (well, everybody who hasn't figured out the secret to experiencing popular places without the crowds).

This same strategy ("be there when the crowds aren't") is very handy in many places. Toledo is a perfect example of a place where it makes all the difference.

David and acraven give very good advice about why it's better to spend at least one night in Toledo!

And I will say the same, if I haven't already, about Cordoba. Staying overnight in Cordoba is better than seeing it as a day trip from Seville. It just depends on how much packing and unpacking and checking into hotels you want to do. To the best of my memory, we found Toledo to be more crowded than Cordoba during the day. Not sure why. While I enjoyed both places, I actually like Cordoba better.

RE: TOLEDO..............Would you still suggest spending the night during a mid to late September trip plannning to see Toledo on a weekday? Would the day tripping crowds be considerably less? Or do you still think it's worth a night?

Thank you
Sharon

@sbowers992 - yes. Even in late September Toledo is full of tourists. The city has a completely different feel in the evening and at night, so if you can, spend a night.

sbowers992, yes, definitely spend a night in Toledo if you can. We were there in mid-September 2017, and it was packed with huge tour buses during the day. Toledo at night is beautiful when the daytrippers have left and the city is illuminated. When we were there, Toledo did not shut down in the evening. Zocodover Plaza was lively with families out for dinner and ice cream; shops, restaurants, cafes, etc were all open in the evening.