April/May in Spain. 1st itinerary

You don’t need one night in each Arcos de la Frontera and Ronda. Arcos is about an hour from both Sevilla and Ronda and is pretty small. A couple hours visiting it is sufficient. Drive from Sevilla to Arcos, then drive over to Ronda for 2 nights.

Ronda to Granada is a couple hour drive. If you got an early start you’d have time for a couple short stops en route and you’d arrive in Granada with some time to see parts of the city other than the Alhambra. Your full day there will be occupied with the Alhambra.

Other than the Arcos/Ronda bit, your plan is workable and looks like what I would have done when younger. I feel your nights in each place are the minimum needed to visit the places you want to visit.

Some people may recommend Toledo as a day trip from Madrid for a couple reasons; fewer hotel changes, more time in Madrid, and you need to go through Madrid from Toledo to get to Sevilla.

I know you say you don’t want another day in Madrid but I really feel like you’re shortchanging Madrid. There’s some beautiful historical sites there and you’re probably not going to get them with two days especially assuming you’re coming from someplace like the United States so your first day is Jetlag.

You could also use Madrid as a base for a day trip to Toledo and a day trip to Segovia, which is another great place to visit

My wife and spent 11 nights in Spain in Sep 2023, visiting many of the same cities/areas as you: Seville (3 nights), Ronda (2), Granada (2), Cordoba (1), Madrid (3).

Based on the recommendation of another Forum member, we modified our original itinerary to add 1 night in Cordoba (dropping Toledo): we found it totally worthwhile due to the Mezquita.

Should I add en extra night to Arcos, Rhonda and Granada.

We stayed 2 nights in both Ronda and Granada, and it worked well for us. We chose not to visit Arcos.

Similar to your plan, we rented a car in Seville and returned it in Granada. We stopped at a few places during the drive.

Details on our trip, including the stops we made during our drive, are in our trip report posted on the Rick Steves forum: https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports/trip-report-spain-aug-sep-seville-ronda-granada-cordoba-madrid

I notice that you don't have Cordoba on your itinerary. Cordoba is a wonderful, beautiful small city with many important historical and cultural sites, and I think you will regret missing Cordoba, especially since you say you are interested in historical sites. I have been to every place on your itinerary except for Ronda and Arcos, which IMO are "lesser" sites than Cordoba.

When you say you have 3 days to add, do you mean nights or days?

If it were my trip, I would include Cordoba for 1 or 2 nights (preferably 2) and then add 1 night to Madrid. You will be jetlagged when you first arrive in Madrid. And especially since your husband wants to visit the Reina Sofia, I think you need the extra night. Madrid is really a wonderful city with some outstanding art museums. We much preferred the Prado over the Louvre in Paris, for example. There is the Royal Palace, Temple Debod, and the lovely Retiro Park when you can enjoy drinks by the lake.

Ideally, 4 nights in Seville is better than 3 nights. Seville is larger than Cordoba and Granada, and has a wealth of cultural and historical sites. Seville has beautiful architecture, plazas, fountains, parks, etc. so lovely for just wandering and exploring. Maybe spend 1 night in Ronda (no overnight in Arcos) so you can add an extra night to Seville?

I would keep the 2 nights in Toledo. I think Toledo is more enjoyable when you spend a night or two there instead of seeing it as a daytrip from Madrid. You get a better feel for the city, experience the essence of the city, when spending a night or two in Toledo.

I think Seville needs a minimum of 4 nights for a not-rushed visit, plus an extra night if you take a day trip to Cordoba. I consider Cordoba essential and would prefer to spend at least two nights there, but you only have so much time.

Madrid is short with only one non-jetlagged day.

Arcos is quite small, as already mentioned, and Ronda's indoor sights mostly pale in comparison to what you'll see everywhere else (except in Arcos). If I had to cut nights somewhere, I'd cut them from Ronda. (And I do like the city; it's just that I don't like it as much as the larger places you're going. It's great you'll have a rental car so you can stop in Arcos and see Ronda conveniently on the way from Seville to Granada. That's smart itinerary planning.

I would do it something like this:

Madrid 4 nights and daytrip to Toledo

Seville 4 nights and daytrip to Arcos and/or Rhonda (I'd pick only one as there's a lot to see/do in Seville)

Granada 3 nights

Barcelona 5 nights

Kmkwoo-3 extra nights that have not been assigned. I was going back and forth on Cordoba. I would like to visit but worried about adding another hotel change. We could add a night to Seville and do a day trip to Cordoba but we would be backtracking an hour on the train.
Jaimeelsabio-I like your idea of Rhonda for 2 days and just stop by Acros. Less hotel changes will be better.
GeoffB-did you feel 1 night in Cordoba enough?

GeoffB-did you feel 1 night in Cordoba enough?

For us 1 night was enough as we saw all we wanted to see (which are the items shown in our trip report).
In the responses to my trip report, a couple of people asked if in retrospect we would shift any days among the locations; here is the response I gave:

I would not have shifted any nights around among our stays.
If I had an extra day, probably would have spent it in Cordoba or Granada.
If I had two extra days, I would have been tempted to add Toledo.

I do think it is worthwhile to spend at least 1 night in Cordoba to see and stroll the Roman Bridge when it is illuminated.

GeoffB- great trip report. Lots of great information