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Costa del Sol 6-day itinerary- Granada, Cordoba, Malaga

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We are traveling from Barcelona to Costa del Sol the evening of November 16- afternoon November 22, 6 days and nights.
We want to strike a balance between cramming too much into our itinerary/too many location changes, and missing the "not to be missed" sights. We will be visiting Granada, Cordoba, and Malaga. We plan to dedicate the first day in each city to the "must see sights" and then wrap up each stay with the experiences that are less planned that we learned about in our first day.
We have never been to Spain and would appreciate your thoughts about how well (or not) our plan hits our goals and if we have given the right number of days to each of the three cities. (BTW - We definitely want to see Cordoba and Granada, we picked Malaga because it seemed doable in 2 nights and 1-1/2 days, had a great mix of ancient sites, museums and activities AND offered the only direct and reasonably priced flight to Rome in the late afternoon or evening. Seville didn't seem feasible for this trip due to the size of the area to cover and the unavailability of direct flights to Rome at the times we needed.)

THANK YOU! We are very excited about seeing the mix of cultures in this unique part of Spain.

Evening of Nov 16 flight to Granada from Barcelona
3 nights and days in Granada

Evening of Nov 19 train to Cordoba
1 night and day in Cordoba

Evening of Nov 20 train to Malaga
2 nights and 1.5 days in Malaga

3:30 pm Nov 22 flight to Rome

Thanks so much for your help!

Nan and Jake

Posted by
7133 posts

One night is two partial days, not necessarily a full day. You also need to consider what you’ll do with you luggage from the time you check out of your lodging until the time you catch your train.

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Thanks for the quick input! Did you have a suggestion for how to get around luggage issues? There doesn't seem to ever be a good answer for what to do with luggage before checkin or after checkout, but we are hoping that night arrivals will avoid the need to drag luggage around a new city (or find a storage locker) until check-in at 4 pm, and that our host will let us leave our bags with him until our train departs. If not, we can find one of the many luggage storage locations that seem common in Europe and stow our luggage there until catching the train, but at least we will have some familiarity with the city and be fresh when we do that.

It's unfortunate that we have only one day in Cordoba, but this seemed preferable to the option of a day trip where we'd lose time from the sightseeing day because of the time spent on the round trip between Granada and Cordoba. Do you think we should change the allocation of our time? I understand that Granada deserves the extra days. The logistics have been quite a challenge!

Posted by
7133 posts

Hotels will normally store luggage before check in and for a couple hours after checkout. You’d have to ask at the desk. If you’re staying someplace else, ask the host. We always have a rental car so when we check out we’re on to the next stop.

With two full days in Granada you could take an earlier train to Córdoba getting you into the city around check in time. Assuming the main site you want to visit is the Mezquita, you could possibly visit it on arrival day since it closes at 1900. You could then take an earlier train to Malaga and wouldn’t need to store luggage.

Personally I feel you’re rushing Córdoba. If it was my trip I’d drop Córdoba and add the day to Malaga, that you’re also rushing through. When you check out of your lodging in Malaga you’ll need to head straight to the airport.

It’s always difficult allocating time on a trip when there isn’t much of it.

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