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Assistance for southern Spain itinerary

Posted by on

Hello fellow travelers!

My wife and I are planning our 1st trip to Spain. We have already booked a flight into Barcelona last week of November and then plan to return via Madrid the end of the 2nd week of December.

We are interested in getting some advice for itinerary. Our thoughts are to stay closer to the Mediterranean for this trip. So far, we would like to do a three-night stay in Barcelona, then a three night stay in Valencia, but after that we are looking for options/advice.

My wife and I really enjoy food and wine (all types of food – seafood, meat, veggies, anything local and delicious), but also love checking out the local architecture, history, gallery’s, museums, etc. We love to walk around and take in the scenery. Our thoughts are to head further south and check out the sherry region, and possibly visit Gibraltar if we can fit that in.

I’m interested if after Valencia, should we head straight to the Gibraltar area, or if there is another stop along the way that we should check out. If we are interested in checking out some Sherry production, please let me know what area would be ideal to go to. Also, could we train most of this journey, or would it be best to rent a car from Valencia and travel by road, and then maybe dropping the car in Seville to train it back to Madrid to return home.

Any suggestions for our itinerary would be welcomed!

Gràcies!

Posted by
107 posts

Granada - for The Alhambra (breathtaking) get tickets ahead, and Jerez de la Frontera for Tio Pepe Sherry tour. And Sevilla for the Alcazar (also ticket ahead). Cordoba is also great for The Mezquita Have a great trip!

Posted by
27104 posts

Exactly how many nights will you be spending in Spain?

From the standpoint of museums and architecture (specifically the modernista stuff), there is simply no comparison between Barcelona and Valencia. Three nights in Barcelona as your first stop will give you just two full, reasonably non-jetlagged, days. For your stated interests, that seems incredibly short. I urge you to take a look at a guidebook and list the things you want to see in Barcelona. I believe you'll decide to add more time there. Note that a lot of the most popular sights require pre-purchased, timed, tickets to avoid very long waits in ticket lines and possible sell-outs. You can't just hop from sight to sight on the spur of the moment, making full use of every minute of the day. You must guess, before you even arrive in the city, how much time to leave between Sight A and Sight B. Result: either insufficient time at sights you've paid $25 to see or little snippets of excess time scattered throughout the day that are hard to make use of.

The rail connection from Valencia to Granada is via Madrid. The express bus takes close to 8 hours. Avoid routing yourself that way. Valencia to Madrid/Cordoba/Seville/Cadiz works fine and is faster, by far, by train.

Posted by
15582 posts

Why do you want to stay close to the Med? Winter's a pretty dull time on most of the coast.

Like acraven said, it's too little time in wonderful Barcelona. I liked Valencia well enough but I wouldn't put it in the same category as the top places in Andalucia (which, BTW is the warmest driest part of Europe).

Malaga is on the sea and has some good "second-tier" sights: Roman ruins, art and ethnography museums, very pretty city center.

Jerez is about the only place where you can do walk-in tours of sherry bodegas. Tio Pepe is the most fun, others may offer more opportunity to go into detail with the staff. Time your visit so you can catch a horse show at the Royal Equestrian School. If you stay several nights in Jerez, you can day trip by train to Cadiz and by bus to Arcos.

Check driving distances on Google and especially on viamichelin.com - where they also estimate costs (gas, tolls). Remember that those are net times, no traffic, no pit stops, no looking for parking or getting lost. It's a good idea to compare that with train times and costs. Discounted tickets usually go on sale 62 days in advance and discounts are large!

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