First time in Spain - Need help with itinerary

We are flying in and out of Madrid in late September- early October of this year, for 9 days. We have a red eye from the US to Madrid and arrive 8:30 am - so I am counting this as day 1 in Madrid.

If I only had 10 nights (9 days) to visit Spain, I’d do something like this:

• Take train straight to Córdoba on day of arrival - spend 1-2 nights

• Bus or train to Granada - 2-3 Nights

• Bus to Sevilla - 3 nights

• Train to Madrid - 3 nights

Once you’ve finalized your itinerary, make sure you book your Alhambra tickets 3 months in advance.

Happy planning!

Less is more; Since you have the roundtrip set I would save Barcelona for another time.
So you could go
Madrid 3 nights (include a day trip to Segovia or Toledo)
Seville 3 nights
Granada 2 nights
Madrid 1 night

Actually, you only have 8 days there, not 9 - not counting your arrival day, on which you will be jetlagged and wiped out (I'm assuming you're coming on a redeye flight from North America - if just hopping there from somewhere else in Europe, then this is mitigated).

A trip to Europe where you just get 8 days there is not wise IMHO - you're spending a lot on airfare for a very short time there. I'd look at trying to extend your trip if there's any way you can do that. If not, make a note for next time - stay longer, get a better trip.

Also keep in mind that "2 nights" anywhere = just one full day there. So in your itinerary, you don't get 2 days in Barcelona. You get one full day and an evening. Remember: every time you pick up and move, you burn 1/2 to 3/4 of a day, even if the routing is direct (they won't all be) and you are highly efficient (you won't always be).

OK, so with just 8 full usable days in Europe, you will need to cut something. I'd suggest you pick no more than 2-3 places. Barcelona is the obvious outlier. If you wanted to include Barcelona, you should have flown open jaw (into Madrid and out of Barcelona, or vice versa). Another note for next time: don't book a round trip into one city, book open jaws...round-trip into/out of Madrid is fine if you're staying near/around Madrid, but it works against you if you venture far from there.

I think you do something like this:

Madrid to Seville (maybe with a 1/2 day stop in Cordoba on the way - this is doable if you work at it).
Seville to Granada
Granada to Madrid

That's about all you will have time for, and even at that you're going fast.

Hope that helps.

Actually, you only have 8 days there, not 9 - not counting your arrival day, on which you will be jetlagged and wiped out

It is not as bad as that. I have and people I've traveled with still have a good time and are excited and feel like they've had a good time the first day.

Will you have a 6, 7 or 8 hour time change, assuming you are flying from the US or Canada? The arrival day will turn into a blur around 4pm. Use it for an overview, a walk, but not for serious sightseeing.
We didn’t visit Barcelona until our third trip to Spain;it is your outlier.

Ok, gonna weigh in here. With 8 full days I'd drop Seville and Granada. From Madrid to Grenada is, at best, 5 hours by train. Flying takes less time but by the time you figure in transport to and from the airport, security, etc., etc. it's about the same if not a little more in terms of time - and that assumes everything runs according to schedule! Since you are flying out of Madrid, that means you have to trek back from Seville (or Grenada if you choose to go to Seville first). That's a lot of time spent in transit which means not a lot of time on the ground. Instead, I'd divide your time between Madrid and Barcelona. With the high speed AVE train, the time is under 3 hours and the train goes from city center to city center. For Madrid, you could easily add in one or two day trips - Toledo, Segovia and El Escorial are all easy day trips from Madrid.
It's very tempting to try and see as much as you can, but I would resist that - otherwise you'll find you're seeing a lot of train stations and airports.

Two nights is nowhere near enough time for Barcelona where I consider 4 nights a bare minimum. Leave BCN for another time, it’s so easy to get to with so many flight options.

Day 1 - arrive in Madrid (3N) at 8:35 am - check in hotel - sight seeing
Day 2 - Madrid
Day 3 - day trip to Toledo
Day 4 - train to Granada (2N)
Day 5 - visit Alhambra
Day 6 - train to Seville (3N)
Day 7 - Seville
Day 8 - Seville
Day 9 - early train to Córdoba for the Mezquita before late afternoon train back to Madrid (1N)
day 10 - flight back - 11:00 am

Thank you very much for the suggestions everyone. I do wish we had more time, just didn't work out this time. So, as I thought, Barcelona will have to wait for now. I'll focus on the Madrid ( with a day trip to Segovia or Toledo)- Seville (possible side trip to Cordoba) - Granada - and back to Madrid plan. Any lodging recommendations in these cities?

Also, weighing renting a car vs. trains. I know Spain has great trains - weighing these options. Car would give us the freedom to travel at our own pace and not be tied down to train schedules etc. Any thoughts on this topic will be very helpful- roads, signage, general driving/parking in cities and highways. Can we drive with US driver's license? car insurance? or anything else relevant to transportation. Thanks a lot.

In today's NY Times, 36 Hours in Seville.

Known for its many festivals, Moorish architectural flourishes and, of course, flamenco, the capital of Spain’s Andalusia region is a buoyant city whose many cultures are reflected in its cuisine, buildings, art and history.

The trains are really the way to go for the locations you are visiting. It's at least a 5-1/2 hour car ride from Madrid to Seville and it's not terribly scenic. The train is only 2-1/2 hours and it's pretty comfortable, you can get up and stretch your legs, go to the snack car, etc.

It can make sense to drive if you were to go from Granada to Seville, and wanted to stop in to see some "white hill towns," like Ronda or Arcos de la Frontera. But not sure if you have time to do that this time around.

If you do decide to drive, you will need to get an International Driver's Permit from AAA. It's easy to get, only about $30 including getting the picture taken, and took me about 15 minutes at the AAA office. I used my regular car insurance and had all needed coverage from my credit card, so I did not need to purchase anything additional. I used EuropCar and had a good experience.

Have fun planning!

Also, weighing renting a car vs. trains.

Trains and buses are a very efficient way to travel within Spain.
My suggested itinerary: Córdoba > Granada > Sevilla > Madrid, will avoid the long trek from Granada to Madrid.

I understand that your time is short, so an overnight in Córdoba will give you time to visit the amazing Mezquita, eat a good meal, get a good night's sleep and then head over to Granada.

We took the ALSA Bus from Córdoba to Granada, then from Granada to Sevilla. The buses were comfortable, air-conditioned and reliable. It was great to have someone else do the driving while we enjoyed the scenery.

Enjoy!

In Madrid I've stayed at Hotel Europa on both visits. It's moderately priced, very well located, modern, excellent staff who are friendly and knowledgeable. It's easy to get to/from the train station and the airport on public transportation.

In Sevilla I've stayed at the Amadeus 3 times and love it. It's very special, very comfortable, very central, and staff are super. Book as soon as possible, they do fill up.

Consider going to Sevilla on arrival. You'd have to take the cercanias (suburban train) from Barajas, then a 3 hour train ride to Sevilla, but it would save you a hotel change. Nap on the train, then spend the late afternoon walking around Sevilla. The Plaza de Espana is best in the late afternoon sunlight. Consider that Day 1 isn't going to be a "day" even if you sleep in Madrid. First, you won't have a night's sleep. It's a 7-hour flight from NY, 8 hours from Chicago. You'll be lucky if you manage 4-5 hours sleep. If your plane lands on time, you still have to navigate passport control and wait for your bags (unless you only have carry ons), then get into the city and to your hotel to check in. And it's lunchtime!

Alhambra tickets are already on sale for September. Buy your tickets as soon as you have your dates locked down.

Thank you. Helpful. Trains are the way to go.

As far as going from Madrid to Seville - I thought there are high speed AVE trains between the two cities. Isn’t that correct?

"As far as going from Madrid to Seville - I thought there are high speed AVE trains between the two cities. Isn’t that correct? "

Yes, that's the 3 hour train ride Chani is talking about. These trains leave from Madrid Atocha station. To get from Madrid airport to Madrid Atocha, you need to take a cercanias (local) train. When you buy your AVE ticket, it will have a CombinadoCercanias, which is a code you can redeem for a free ticket on the cercanias train. Just ask when you buy your ticket.

Here's a thread with all the details on getting from the airport to Cordoba. You will be taking the same train, just staying on until Seville: https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/spain/madrid-airport-to-cordoba-train-station

Thank you Harold - clearly I need to do a whole lot more research on the Spanish train system. The link in your response has a lot of very useful information- a bit overwhelming at first read, but I have taken notes for reference.

Really appreciate all the help on this forum. I am sure I'll be back asking for more guidance once I have done more research and finalized our itinerary which I hope to have by the end of next week. That should give us plenty of time to order Alhambra tickets!:)

Before finalizing your itinerary, I would check on the availability of Alhambra tickets. Given the tight schedule you have, it looks like there is only one day that will work for the Alhambra and if tickets aren't available on that day you may be disappointed.

thank you all for the help and advice!! Making progress... after doing lots of reading and research, we settled on this itinerary:
arrive Madrid 8:30 am -take train to Cordoba (1)
Take Bus to Granada (2)
Bus to Seville (3)
Train to Madrid (3-w/day trip to Toledo).

Depart Madrid
I bought our General Alhambra tickets also! Yay. Now for booking hotels, sights, etc. will need to do more research.

A couple of questions on booking train and bus tickets in advance - yes or no? Read both ways. I prefer to have reservations ahead of time, but not sure since I have also read that it is very easy to get tickets on the day of travel in case of delays or changes.

Also, we arrive at 8:30 am (hopefully no delays) - have to make it through customs etc. etc. before we get ourselves together, get over to the train station from the airport and figure things out - what is a reasonable hour for making the train reservations from Madrid to Cordoba? noon? to be conservative? or should I wait till we are there before buying the train tickets?

thanks again. All of you have been very helpful.

This is the best article on the trains, even though I see it's been closed to updates for a couple years. Nothing significant has changed AFAIK.

Cordoba is a good choice for an overnight, since it happens to be my favorite Spanish city ☺ You can take the train or bus to Granada and from there to Sevilla. The trains can only go as far as Antequera, since Renfe began working on upgrading the tracks to Granada. But Renfe has buses that complete the journey. The transfer is seamless from all reports and the benefit is that the Renfe bus drops you at the Granada train station, closer to the historic center than the bus station. The bus and train stations in Cordoba are across the street from each other. I'm not sure if it makes much difference in Sevilla.

The problem with buying tickets for your arrival date is you have no idea what time you will to get to Atocha station in Madrid. Your plane may be late (there are half a dozen reasons that I could list), there may be long lines at passport control, your bags might be delayed. Or you may sail through without any wait time. If you miss your train, you've lost your money and have to buy full-fare tickets. If you've allowed too much time, you'll end up wasting hours in Atocha.

Just so you know - when you get to Atocha, you will have to go through a security check before boarding the train. All your belongings will have to go through the xray machine, including coats and jackets, but there's no body check, so you don't have to empty pockets, take off shoes. And you don't have to take things like liquids and electronics out of your bags. So it's pretty quick, nothing to fret about, just know what to expect.

As Chani indicated, it's impossible to know exactly what train you'll want to take to Cordoba, so I'd probably wait and buy that ticket once on the ground in Spain--accepting that I would be paying a higher price for it.

For Seville to Madrid you can potentially save a lot of money by buying the ticket as soon as your schedule is firm. The cheapest tickets are non-refundable/non-changeable.

For the day-trip to Toledo, the fare will be the same no matter when you buy the ticket, but trains do occasionally sell out (probably riskiest around weekends or holidays); Rick specifically warns about the late trains back from Toledo. What is useful to know is that in Spain, round-trip tickets are often about the same price as one-way tickets, so in this case it makes sense to guess what time you'll be ready to head back to Madrid and buy the RT ticket up-front. There's much to see in Toledo, so I'd want to give myself a lot of time there. Madrid's Atocha Station is quite large and confusing to some of us, with different places (both staffed counters and vending machines) to buy tickets to different destinations. Do not walk in the door 15 minutes before the departure time of a train and expect to buy the ticket and get to the platform in time, because it might not happen. The staffed counters for long-distance tickets are the worst. They use a take-a-number system, and they sometimes stop giving out numbers 30 minutes or more before closing time, because there are so many people waiting.

I'm not certain whether you can save money by buying bus tickets to and from Granada early. I wouldn't be surprised if there's a price difference. You can figure that out on the bus company's website by pricing tickets for today and then the same bus for a Saturday well in the future.

Do note Chani's point about the convenience of the Renfe train/bus combination due to the different station locations in Granada, however.

So this is where we are at ...

Day 1 - Arrive in Madrid at 8:35 am.
Afternoon train to Córdoba (1N)
Day 2 - Visit the Mezquita.
Afternoon bus to Granada (2N)
Day 3 - Visit Alhambra
Day 4 - Bus/train to Seville (3N)
Day 5 - Seville
Day 6 - Seville
Day 7 - Train to Madrid (3N)
Day 8 - Madrid
Day 9 - Day trip to Toledo
Day 10 - Flight back home at 11:00 am.

Looking at best possible train connections for Days 2 & 4.
Córdoba >> Granada >> Sevilla.

AVN 8125
Dep 13:40 CORDOBA-CENTRAL (Spain)
Arr 14:16 ANTEQUERA-SANTA ANA (Spain)
TRN13065
Dep 14:40 ANTEQUERA-SANTA ANA (Spain)
Arr 16:10 GRANADA (Spain)

TRN13945
Dep 17:32 GRANADA (Spain)
Arr 20:44 SEVILLA-SANTA JUSTA (Spain)

Consider that Day 1 isn't going to be a "day" even if you sleep in Madrid. First, you won't have a night's sleep. It's a 7-hour flight from NY, 8 hours from Chicago. You'll be lucky if you manage 4-5 hours sleep.

Actually, it would be a miracle if you manage 4-5 hours sleep.

Unless you will be flying in business class or first class, I think you should expect that you (or at least someone in your group) will not get any real sleep at all on your outbound flight. Most people I know don't get any meaningful sleep these days on a redeye from North America to Europe (lucky you if you can). Remember that a group can only move as fast as the slowest (least happy) member of the group. So I would caution against expecting too much from everyone on your arrival day.

That said, I think the boiled-down itinerary above is squeezed about as tightly as possible. My only quibbles would be:

• The pace is going to be blistering - there's only a couple places where you have a full day somewhere. The fact that you're going to press hard on your redeye arrival day - and then keep pressing - means you won't really have a chance to catch your breath and recover (maybe not until you're on the flight home! I guess sleep will come easier on that flight...:) ). I hope you will be stress-free and very well-rested and ready for a blitz before you get on your outbound flight.
  
• Doing Toledo as a day trip from Madrid is the worst possible way to do Toledo - because everyone does that, and mid-day the place is badly overcrowded. If there's any way to manage it, you will get a much, much better experience if you go there in the afternoon, stay overnight, enjoy the blissful, crowd-free emptiness late afternoon/evening the next morning, before moving on as the crowds roll in mid-morning. Unfortunately, I don't see any day you could take that from in your plan above - only option would be to take that from Seville...after all, it looks like you've got 2 full days plus a partial day after arrival in Seville, but just one full day in Madrid...is Seville worth that much more relative time than Madrid? Maybe, maybe not. Certainly, you don't have any "extra" time anywhere, and you're definitely short-changing multiple places by trying to squeeze in what's here.

No great solution here, so pick the best (or least bad) option.

Thanks David for the words of caution, I know we don't have as much time as we'd ideally like, I wish I could add time, but I can't change my time table, so we have to make the best of it - we'll be ok. I got awesome round trip tickets to Madrid - so a future trip is very much a possibility. I want to go to Barcelona next time- so I am counting this trip as a first to be followed by others. Not worried- I will take heed and see if we can spend a night in Toledo to avoid the midday crowds etc. good suggestions. Even if that means less time in Madrid. See how it goes..

Chani- thanks for the article on the trains- very informative and will be useful when I start making train reservations. I will wait to get to Madrid before booking our trains to Cordoba. That is a wiser move. I plan to reserve the other tickets in advance.

Thank you everyone.

As David warns, the pace is fast. Packing light will make it easier. The less you take, the less you have to pack and unpack. Trust me, no one cares if you wear the same clothes two days (or more) in a row - as long as they don't smell and don't look dirty. On the other hand, being able to change into fresh undies or socks for dinner can be a godsend. Taxis are not expensive and I've never been cheated in Spain. Take taxis to/from train stations. It's hard to find your way around the historic centers and worse when you have luggage, worst when you're tired and frustrated. If you get tired in the middle of the day, stop for a cold drink (everywhere I've been in these places - even in February - there were lots of big ice cubes in every glass, even for water. Okay maybe not for wine, but then go with sangria and you can have ice ☺) and soak up the atmosphere. Remember this is a vacation, not a marathon. If you are tired (and especially if your feet are achy) at the end of the day, take a taxi back to the hotel.

Use your time wisely. If your hotel will pack a breakfast for you, you can take an early train and eat on the way (most trains have refreshment cars with lots of coffee options - or pick some up at the station before you board). Alternately, you can take a picnic dinner and a bottle of wine (be sure to get it opened before you leave the hotel) on an evening train.

The Alhambra is huge. Allow plenty of time and take water and a picnic lunch with you. You can get drinks and snacks at the few souvenir shops and vending machines on the campus (the ones I remember are near the Nasrid Palaces) but I don't think there are any cafes yet.