October Spain Trip

Book MultiCity Tickets (not roundtrip) -- fly into Madrid and out of Barcelona. No need to go back to Madrid to fly home. That's what most of us do in Europe as not to have to circle back.

While you’re based in Sevilla there’s minimal time allotted to see it. I also wouldn’t want to visit Granada as a day trip from Sevilla. That involves at least six hours of travel. Assuming you’re going to Granada to see the Alhambra, one could spend the better part of a day visiting it.

Personally, I wouldn’t try to go from Barcelona to Madrid on the departure day. Too many things could go wrong.

Fly in and out of Sevilla and Barcelona. Skip Madrid if you can.
Granada is not a day trip from Sevilla. It takes 2h 45m one way and you plan on returning the same day?

Thank you!! Great points. Planning on spending the night in Granada. Then train from Granada to Barcelona.

The trip from Granada to Barcelona by train takes at least 6-1/2 hours (and that's if you're OK with arriving at 10 PM). I'd be taking the 11 AM train, which takes about 8 hours. I am no fan of flying in the middle of a trip, but you have very little time. I'd look at flights. Vueling seems to make the trip several times a day. Be sure you understand the cafeteria-style pricing and allow for luggage fees, etc.

It sounds like you are committed to flying R/T Madrid. In that case you will spend way too much of your 8 full days just getting from place to place. Hard a choice as it may be, Barcelona should be scrapped as the outlier. What time is your return flight from Madrid?
You could conceivably spend your last night in Cordoba (it's a shame to only see it as a day trip) or perhaps Toledo. The benefit of Toledo is that if there's a train interruption, it's only about an hour by taxi or private driver to the airport.

I would go first to Cordoba, then Sevilla, Granada and Toledo. Or Sevilla, Granada, Cordoba.

I agree with Chani. Since it looks like you have already purchased RT tickets in and out of Madrid, I recommend eliminating Barcelona for this trip. Visit another time. October would be a great time, weather-wise (not too hot) to spend in Andalusia. An itinerary could be something like this:

Sevilla - 4 nights
Cordoba - 1 night
Granada -2 nights
Madrid - 1 night

You really should be back in Madrid the night before you fly home.

There are so many wonderful and culturally important sights in Sevilla that you will not be bored with 4 nights there.

I think you will miss the ambiance and essence of Cordoba by seeing it as a daytrip, and you will be there when all the daytrippers are there. Cordoba in the evening is magical when the Mezquita is illuminated.

If you haven't purchased any guidebooks yet, in addition to Rick's book, I recommend The Rough Guides and the Michelin Green Guides. I have always liked Lonely Planet but I don't like their new format.

Thanks everyone for the feedback! We were able to find a flight that would be a multi city trip flying back from Barcelona. So that could fix that issue. We have not booked the flights yet. We really want to do Barcelona and Sevilla. We were reading that it may be worth dropping Granada. What are y’all‘s thoughts on that? We plan to train from Sevilla to Barcelona. The updated itinerary looks like this.

Day 1 – Arrival in Madrid → arrival in Sevilla around 1pm
Day 2 – Sevilla (full day)
Day 3 – Sevilla (full day)
Day 4 – Córdoba (full day)
Day 5 – Cordoba (half day) → Barcelona
Day 6 —Barcelona
Day 7 – Barcelona
Day 8 – Barcelona (Montserrat?)
Day 9 – Barcelona → Departure

Multi-city is absolutely the way to go. Do double check to see if you can fly into Seville, since Madrid is low priority. Sometimes it works and sometimes not.

For Granada, I personally love it a lot - but with limited time, you cannot go everywhere. You have to make peace with that. :)

Thank you!! Only way to get to Sevilla from Philly would be to connect through Madrid or another place with a flight. So figure the train is best bet?

Quite possibly train is best. It’s always worth checking, though. I fly from DFW and have seen flying all the way in to Seville come in as cheap as Madrid sometimes (and often not). What with having to change trains at Chamartin, then at Atocha while managing luggage, plus plan train times to take a potential flight delay into consideration, it’s something I always check.

Thank you! We will definitely check! Do you recommend a day trip to Monserrat or elsewhere or is best to stay in Barcelona all 3.5 days?

Everyone will have an opinion. It depends on what you like most and how much you like packing into a day. I loved my day to Montserrat, but there is plenty to see in Barcelona for 3 1/2 days. I had 5 1/2 days so plenty of time for a day trip. I’d say take a look at what all there is and put sites in order of importance to you. There’s more than just Gaudi sights and we all like different things. I love music so my favorites were a tour of the Palau de la Musica Catalana, Sunday morning mass at the Cathedral of Barcelona, a guitar trio at the tiny Basílica de Santa Maria del Pi and the not so often mentioned Museum of the History of Barcelona.

Whether you can fit in a day trip to Monserrat should be determined by what you want to see in Barcelona proper. You don’t want to make your trip more hectic than it already will be.

For me, flying to Sevilla makes sense if you can get a flight not too terribly long after landing in Madrid. That would eliminate the need to go into the city, then go to a different train station, then wait for the train, then head south. They are not transportation changes I’d relish making after an overnight flight. Everybody will have their own opinion, so do what works best for you.

Regarding the daytrip to Montserrat, that depends on what you want to see and do in Barcelona, as others have said. We spent 6 nights in Barcelona many years ago, (without any daytrips) and we still didn't see everything we were interested in. Don't forget that Barcelona is so popular now, especially the Gaudi sights, that you need to purchase tickets in advance for many of these sights. These are timed tickets. So, depending on what's available for times, you may not be able to immediately go from one sight to another. So it could take you longer than you expected to see what is important to you. Personally, I don't think you have enough time in Barcelona for a daytrip BUT that is just my opinion based on our interests. We weren't that interested in Montserrat. Montserrat might be more important to you than it was to us. And more important to you than some of the sights in Barcelona. There really is no right or wrong answer.

And open-jaw is definitely the way to go since Barcelona is so important to you.

You have also made a wise choice to overnight in Cordoba.