Late Winter fly to Madrid; pick up rental car and drive to Salamanca (2 nights)
Drive to Porto via Douro Valley (4 nights)
Lisbon (5 nights) side trip to Sintra
Quarteira (5 nights) side trips to Sagres etc.
Seville (3 nights);
Malaga (8 nights), side trips to Granada etc.
Toledo (2 nights)
Madrid drop off car at no charge! (3 nights)
Fly home
Side trips as they're lots to see & do!
Any comments?
Thanks,
Jean
P.S. Been to Barcelona previously.
Posted by
Ontario, Canada
4656 posts
Granada - a side trip only as it day trip? Lots there and one can spend most of the day in Alhambra.
what about Cordoba? No time from Seville (in my opinion).
What about an overnight in Granada, then an overnight in Cordoba enroute to Madrid?
Personally, I prefer to keep moving forward rather than back tracking - particularly when I have to go by a place again (sort of.
You could probably figure out an overnight between Granada and Cordoba, and do both as 'day trips, with a stop between.
Posted by
Brisbane, Australia
7175 posts
Malaga is not an ideal base for an extended stay. Granada & Ronda are each about a 2 hour drive away - that's 4 hours of your day gone already.
I think you need to also overnight in Granada to experience the flood lit view of the Alhambra. It's a gorgeous sight.
Posted by
Tel Aviv
15791 posts
When exactly does your trip start? If you are planning to travel in February to mid-March, Malaga would not be my choice for a base. The coast is pretty dull then and as David says, a poor base for inland day trips. I haven't been to Portugal, but for Andalucia and Madrid, the only place a car is beneficial is if you want to explore the hill towns or the coast. For the rest, trains are faster, taxis are inexpensive, driving in the cities is not enjoyable and parking is expensive. When you say drop off the rental car at no charge, do you mean you have free use of a car for a month and only pay for gas, parking, etc.? Otherwise, why would there be a drop-off charge for a car rented in Madrid?
If you are starting in late winter, that puts you in Spain in early spring. I still wouldn't advise spending time exploring the south coast, but you absolutely need to take Semana Santa (last week of March) into account.
Your allocation of days would not be mine. If I knew what you want to "see & do" I might be able to give you suggestions.
Posted by
OP
526 posts
Starts mid-March. We hate uprooting so we're booked into Malaga for 8 nights but don't mind driving; just want to explore the coastal towns; and as we don't have a curfew we can stay later in Granada or elsewhere.
In each town we're booked into have complimentary parking so that's not an issue as for other smaller towns parking should be ok.
I mean we're renting a car for 30 days from Madrid to Madrid so just making a comment that there isn't a drop off fee!
We've booked through Airbnb in Seville early April, so we're ok for there...
Thanks all for your comments,
Jean