Feedback requested: Madrid, Granada, Cordoba and Sevilla in December

A quick look at the Alhambra ticket site shows none available on 12/25-12/30. I would secure your Alhambra tickets then work out the rest of your itinerary. It would be a terrible shame to go to Granada and miss the Alhambra. I recommend 3 nights in Granada, so you have two full days to explore.
https://tickets.alhambra-patronato.es/en/

Sounds like a fun trip! Have you considered going straight to Sevilla first rather than breaking up your time in Madrid? This would save on travel time (and likely expense) between cities. Would also give your more flexibility for day trips from Madrid. Example:
Dec 25-27 (3 nights): Sevilla
Dec 28-29 (2 nights): Granada
Dec 30-Jan 5 (7 nights): Madrid (with day trips)
(personally, I would consider 3 nights in Granada, but that would mean traveling on Dec 31 with the above schedule)

My wife and I did a similar trip in November. Landed in Madrid mid-morning and went straight to Sevilla on 14:00 train, followed by Granada, then Madrid. This worked great for us.

Thank you so much! This is very helpful.
Lance: we are flying from California. Where did you fly from? I am trying to assess if going to Sevilla is feasible after a long flight.

Thanks.

I’ll probably get a lot of flak but we were just in Spain in October. If you tour the cathedral and Alcazar in Seville and the cathedral in Cordoba, a real don’t miss, you can skip the Alhambra. The architecture and tiles and reliefs and ceilings were just as impressive. We didn’t find the Alhambra to be a don’t miss in Spain. It’s history is very interesting, but all of Spain’s history is.
In Seville I found the bullfight museum very interesting, you can walk around the arena. How old are your boys? We did a great cooking class, nothing complicated, and our one hour flamenco dance class was so much fun and different. All three places are near each other and can be done in one day.

Thanks, Barbara. Your comments are much appreciated.
My boys are 21 and 18 (this trip is largely to celebrate their milestone birthdays).
Let me look into the cooking class and Flamenco class- if you can, pls share the links to the classes.

Hi in Spain our holiday season extends into January, with the main celebration being Dia de los Reyes Magos (three kings day) on January 6th. Know that on the night of Jan 5th most cities in Spain have a big parade of the Three Kings (Cabalgata De Los Reyes Magos), it will be a great festive experience in our local culture. There are really big Three Kings parades in Barcelona and Madrid.

FYI many restaurants will be open on Christmas Day (Dec 25), but it is a very popular time to eat out for the traditional Christmas lunch, around 3 pm, for local Spanish families so you may need to reserve in advance. However most stores will be closed Christmas Day (Dec 25).

Also, be sure not to miss our Christmas markets in Spain! Our Christmas market tradition is a little know part of our culture (It's not just the Germans lol). Since we mainly celebrate the Three Kings Day (Jan 6), you will find most of our Christmas Markets are still up into early Jan. For example, in Madrid the Plaza Mayor Christmas Market is great.

Here is a English language article about some of our amazing Christmas Markets in Spain:
https://theculturetrip.com/europe/spain/articles/12-magical-christmas-markets-to-visit-in-spain/

Regarding NYE, Think of Madrid as the New York city of Spain when it comes to New Year's Eve, and think of Madrid's Puerta del Sol as the Times Square. The most famous New Year’s tradition in Spain is eating 12 grapes, one for each gong at midnight. I think you'll have a blast if you head over to Puerta del Sol in Madrid during NYE, with a bottle of Cava (sparkling wine) in one hand and a handful of grapes in the other!

P.S. During the holiday season, we have a tradition in Spain of eating Turrón – a nougat-like sweet. I would be on the look out to try some. For sure, you can find a great selection of different turrónes at El Corte Inglés.

Turron is so delicious. We did take a pass on the marzipan though, not to our taste. We booked The dance class was Rick’s recommended guide Conception Delgado and her company Sevillewalkingtours.com. It was about 28€ pp. Our instructor was a very sweet, patient, pretty young lady. Go for the extra 5€ and rent the shoes, we still laugh about the men in their pointy toed boots. Definitely size up. The cooking class was in the Tirana market - Taller Andalusia de Cocina school. It was about 2 hours, 50€ pp and we ate and drank what we prepared - Sangria, Gazpacho and Paella. They can impress their female friends when they return home. We like to do activities to break up the church and museum tours.

Regarding NYE, Think of Madrid as the New York city of Spain when it comes to New Year's Eve, and think of Madrid's Puerta del Sol as the Times Square.

Puerta del Sol is a mess of renovation at the moment, mostly blocked for the ongoing work with passageways of fencing to cross the plaza. When I was there last week I asked my Madridiño freinds what the plan was for the plaza and the clock for New Years and they had no idea. (Despite living just a few minutes away, they wouldn't touch that party with a ten foot pole!)

Thanks very much all. Bummed to hear about Puerta Del Sol- but glad you told me so we can look at other options too.

Thank you so much! This is very helpful.
Lance: we are flying from California. Where did you fly from? I am trying to assess if going to Sevilla is feasible after a long flight.

We flew from Minneapolis with connection in Amsterdam. Allowed ourselves 4-5 hours between mid-morning arrival in Madrid and mid-afternoon train departure from Atocha Station. This was more than enough time, so we paid a few Euro to store our luggage at a hostel near the train station (lockers weren't available) and grabbed lunch at a cafe across the street.

We were able to sleep a bit on the train to Sevilla, but it does make for a slighlty longer travel day.

Yours is a short trip, and there are many fabulous cities in that part of Spain. It is a terrible waste of time to stay in Madrid three times! I'd avoid that at any cost.

Three nights in Seville is really too few. I think four nights is a reasonable minimum.

I disagree with Barbara about the Alhambra, but every trip has a time-limit, and if it turns out that you can't squeeze in Granada, it doesn't constitute a tragedy. The Alcazar in Seville is lovely, too.

I see Alhambra tickets available on Dec 31 and Jan 2-5; however, you may find that only mid- to late-afternoon tickets remain at this point. The entire complex is quite large, but you could see everything except the Nasrid Palaces (the most important/beautiful part) before the entry time on your ticket. The website indicates limited ticket availability, so any of those days could sell out soon. Do not buy the "Gardens, Generalife and Alcazaba" ticket; it does not include the Nasrid Palaces.

Thanks, Lance and Acraven.

We are now leaning towards what Lance has proposed, which is to head to Seville the day we land in Madrid.
Something like:
Dec 25-28 (4 nights): Sevilla (we land and take the 1pm or 2 pm train to Seville)
Dec 29-30 (2 nights): Granada (see Alhambra on Dec 31 and go to Madrid after- to be there for NYE (3 hour train but doable, if we get to Alhambra early) - We can be in Madrid by 7 pm which is okay. Fingers crossed we can get the 8:30 am tix for Alhambra.
Dec 31-Jan 5 (6 nights): Madrid (with day trips)

Is this the best website to look for train tickets: https://www.renfe.com/es/en

Puerta del Sol is a mess of renovation at the moment, mostly blocked for the ongoing work with passageways of fencing to cross the plaza.

Wow that would be a huge mistake if Puerta del Sol is not ready by New Years Eve. That's like Times Square not celebrating NYE because of construction work. Puerta del Sol has always been the center of NYE festivities in Spain, since I was young I remember watching that clocktower on Radiotelevisión Española.

Update: looks like part of Puerta del Sol reopened today but maybe still need some cleaning lol, absolute disgrace by the local Madrid authorities per usual - https://www.huffingtonpost.es/entry/muestra-como-ha-quedado-una-parte-de-la-puerta-del-sol-y-la-gente-no-da-credito_es_638c644fe4b0411f9e796341

absolute disgrace by the local Madrid authorities per usual

Ayuso tiene tanto por refomas cosmeticas en un año de eleciones. Pero para pagar enfermeros... esto no lo tiene...

Si, tiene grandes ideas, pero solo para ella jajaja

Here’s a link to the Puerta Del Sol live webcam. It is as Carlos described.

To the OP, I really, really hope you can get tickets for the Alhambra. IMO, it is one of the most beautiful and amazing sites I have seen, and the most memorable. The Real Alcazar in Seville is a very close second to the Alhambra. As much as I loved the Mezquita in Cordoba, I would rank the Mezquita #3, with the Alhambra #1 and the Real Alcazar a very close #2.

The Alhambra has magnificent wall and ceiling carvings and etchings in addition to beautiful tile work. And the lovely Patio of Lions. And its focus on water. I love its Islamic architecture and it’s one of the best preserved palaces in the Islamic world. It also consists of the beautiful Generalife gardens and the stark but impressive Alcazaba.

Also want to add that since you are spending 6 nights in Madrid, I recommend cutting that back to 5 nights and spend one night in Toledo. I just don’t think a day trip to Toledo does it any justice. I don’t know how crowded it will be in December/January, but if it is crowded during the day, the evenings are magical when the day trippers have left and the city is illuminated. And you also have the time to see more sites as well. We spent one night in Toledo, and some people spend 2 or 3 nights in Toledo. To be very honest, I think that if we had seen Toledo as a day trip, my opinion would have been “what’s all the fuss about?”.

Thanks very much to all of you. We are definitely going to Granada- bought tix last night, so we are committed to that! Trying to decide if we should do 2 nights in Granada or less/more...It looks like Seville warrants 3 or more nights.
Bummed about Puerta De Sol construction issues- hope they clean them up by NYE.

Seville is much larger than Granada (about three times the population) and has considerably more sights. I do like Granada and would never say the Alhambra is the only thing to see there--check out the fabulous, over-the-top Basilica de San Juan de Dios!--but there's just a lot more in Seville.

We were in Madrid last week and the Puerta del Sol is much more open than it was earlier in the month. There are only a couple of corners left with construction, most of the square is open and you can now walk across. . We stayed at the Hotel Europa and on a couple of nights, watched the fans from Argentina and Morocco celebrate in the square.
One caveat-last week was something of a holiday weekend and the Sol metro stop was closed from 6:00pm to around 9:00 pm. We had to ride to Gran Via and walk back. Also the police were enforcing one way pedestrian traffic on the side streets leading to the square during peak paseo times. I don’t know if this is every night or just last week.

If you want the contact information for a fabulous guide at the Alhambra, just send me a private message. I think those that weren’t impressed by the Alhambra simply didn’t know what they were looking at. The more you know about this site, the more you appreciate it.