Six days in Madrid April 28 - May3 ! May 3 - May 9 - Florence and finally 3 days in Rome . This is our second time in Rome and have seen much of Rome . Any ideas planning our itinerary, and what to seer and avoid . We are happy to do a one day trip from Madrid and Florence . We choose to skip Barcelona . Thanks for any suggestions.
Posted by
Washington DC
28085 posts
Madrid has magnificent day-trip possibilities. Ones I have enjoyed are Toledo (my clear #1, actually worth a multi-night stay), Segovia and Cuenca.
Cuenca needs to be planned in advance because it requires an AVE train to keep the travel time reasonable (55 minutes vs. over 3 hours), and AVE fares can be very high if the tickets are not purchased well in advance.
There is some price variation to Segovia, but not so extreme as to Cuenca. Still, there is the possibility of saving some money with advance purchase of the rail ticket.
Toledo fares do not vary with time of purchase.
In Spain, a round-trip ticket may be about the same price as a one-way, so always check for that before buying your tickets. Even if you're not sure what time you'll want to head back to Madrid, if there's little or no extra cost for a round trip ticket, you may as well take your best guess. Rick warns that trains back to Madrid sometimes sell out, so that's something to be careful about. There are also buses to/from Toledo, but they take longer than trains.
I didn't find Avila particularly interesting, wall notwithstanding. I have not been to El Escorial.
The university town of Alcala de Henares has a very pretty historic area and would make a nice change from big-city Madrid. The train from Chamartin takes less than half an hour.
Posted by
Colorado Mountains, USA
7942 posts
Adding to descriptions above of the worthwhile day trips from Madrid, west to Segovia and/or south to Toledo: Segovia has a magnificent, old Roman aqueduct and is famous for its restaurants serving roast suckling pork. Toledo was the capitol of Spain before Madrid and has art and history galore.
In Florence, consider taking a class from the Mama Florence cooking school.
Posted by
15 posts
Can't respond about Madrid (our trip to Spain is in October), but I would definitely plan a day trip from Florence with six nights. If it were me, I'd go to Siena.