help with planning itinerary

Your list almost parallels the itinerary of Rick Steves' 14-day Spain tour. It starts in Barcelona, goes to Madrid, ends in Seville. Of course you don't have to follow its path or give each place the time it does, but you could use the time allocations as a rough guide. Note that Cordoba is on the train line between Seville and Madrid -- I spent some time there after the RS tour on my way back to Madrid.

You might want to save time by flying from Barcelona to Granada, and then rent a car between Granada and Seville to visit Ronda and Arcos along the way.

Your arrival day may be severely compromised by sleep deprivation and jetlag, so I wouldn't expect to accomplish much then except wandering around outdoors in the sun. I count this as 14 full days in Spain.

Less than 4 nights in Barcelona is likely to cause sightseeing challenges because so many popular sights effectively require pre-purchase of timed entry tickets to avoid horribly long ticket lines. It's smart to slot one of the tricky sights (La Sagrada Familia, Parc Guell, Casa Mila/La Pedrera, Casa Batllo, Picasso Museum) first thing each morning so you don't need to worry about having to leave a previous sight before you've seen enough in order to be on time at the next sight. It's a good idea to book the Palau de la Musica Catalana in advance as well, because the English-language tours sometimes sell out. Those are not all must-sees (I don't believe in the must-see concept), but it seems most visitors want to see many of them. With a bunch of mandatory entry times to deal with, it's not easy to be a highly efficient sightseer. You have to guess how much time you'll want at the first stop of the day, how long it will take you to get to the second sight, when you'll want to eat lunch (Spain eats very, very late) and how long that will take, etc. It's like doing a jigsaw puzzle.

Time in Madrid depends a great deal on your attitude toward art museums. If you want to make comprehensive visits to the big three and also to see some other sights like the Palacio Real, you'll need 4 nights in Madrid, too. If you plan to skip the art museums or perhaps just spend an hour in one of them, 3 nights will be sufficient, or even 2 nights if you're really pinched. I'm in the "Madrid is visually less interesting" camp. That doesn't mean it lacks interesting neighborhoods, but you have too many targets for the days available, so...

When you're pinched for time, Toledo can be a day trip from Madrid (add a night to Madrid if you do that, obviously). I hate to say that, because I spent multiple nights in Toledo and loved it, but you don't have a lot of time. I'd try to spend 2 nights there, at least.

If you must, Cordoba can be a day trip from Seville. It's worth multiple nights (try for 2), but again, compromises sometimes are required.

For both Toledo and Cordoba, it's worth considering how you feel about changing hotels frequently (one-night stops are no one's favorite) vs. missing out on the quieter early AM and late-in-the-day time after the day trippers have left.

Seville is for me a 4-night sort of place, with a night added if you decide to day-trip to Cordoba. I see many people planning just 3 nights there (with separate stops in Cordoba, one hopes). I assume it works for some people, but there's a lot to see in Seville, and the sights are fairly scattered. It's not a small city.

Seeing the Alhambra fully takes the better part of a day. It is a large complex. Therefore, Granada needs at least 3 nights if you want to see much beyond the Alhambra--and you should.

I like Ronda; I've been there three times. But I've spent a lot of time in Spain and spent a great deal of time in a lot of places I think are more important. I consider Ronda a very secondary destination compared to the places I've already mentioned. It somewhat complicates your logistics in that it doesn't have the best transportation connections. (All the previously listed cities have express-train service.) Trying to include Ronda without a rental car will not give you a great pay-off compared to the time you'll spend sitting on trains and buses. (I know this because I travel that way.) The best way to approach Ronda, I think, is to use a rental car to travel between Seville and Granada and see a few of the little white villages along the way.

While you can get in and out of Ronda by train or bus, adding on one of the white villages (by bus) will suck up a lot of time.

Out of space. To be continued.

Continuing...

The only two white villages I've seen are Arcos (population 30,000, though the historic area feels a lot smaller) and Grazalema (population 2000). I was glad to see them both, but there's more to Arcos, so that's where I'd go if I had to choose just one.

In summary:

Barcelona: 4 nights
Madrid: 3 or 4 nights
Toledo: at least 1 night added to Madrid
Seville: 4 nights
Cordoba: at least 1 night added to Seville

That's 13 or 14 nights and we haven't dealt with Ronda/Arcos yet. Spain is a very large country, and you're trying to hit places from the north to the south. Painful decisions have to be made. Believe me, it's something we all face on most of our trips.

If you don't want a trip so tilted toward large cities, you could drop a night from Madrid, I guess, if you aren't art-lovers.

If you're going to be uncomfortable visiting packed sight after packed sight, you should think about what you want to do in Barcelona very carefully. The five sights I listed in my earlier response will be massively crowded. Are you up for that? I love Barcelona, but it is being "loved to death" as they say. There are lots of places to see and neighborhoods to explore that are not packed with tourists, but it usually takes more time than 4 nights before people get around to them.

There's a tour company offering one-day bus trips from Seville to Ronda and one or two white villages. I didn't want to do that, because it really doesn't give you much time in Ronda. Ronda has some actual sights; it's not just a place you walk around for an hour or two. But that tour would be an efficient way to get a look at Ronda and some other spots at the cost of just one day.

There's really not time for day-trips here, aside from Toledo, Cordoba and Ronda. If you had extra time, I'd suggest Girona and perhaps the Dali Theatre-Museum in Figueres from Barcelona (I haven't been to Montserrat) and Segovia from Madrid. Lesser destinations are the white towns of Carmona (bus from Seville) and Priego de Cordoba (bus from Granada), but they're for longer trips.

This trip will leave you a lot of options for a follow-up trip to Spain. Just in the south you have Cadiz, Jerez, Malaga, Ubeda and Baeza. Don't feel you have to go everywhere on a two-week trip. That can lead to feeling you need to do a repeat trip to practically the same places.

acraven really knows her stuff. I have always been impressed by her knowledge. I do believe the RS itinerary is excellent too. Choose the style that fits you.

The good news is that either way you get to see lots of Spain!