Route and transport help 34 days Spain and Morocco

You definitely need more time in Barcelona. Your first day may be nearly worthless for sightseeing because of sleep-deprivation and jetlag, and your two side trips will each take a good chunk of a day, so you're left with just one day in Barcelona, a city that realistically needs at least 4 days.

Barcelona will almost certainly be milder than Madrid in the winter. I agree with your decision to head south after Barcelona, but it may work out better logistically to go from Barcelona all the way to Morocco. Have you checked into how you're going to get from Spain to Morocco? Anything other than flying will waste time, but I don't what sort of flight routings are available from Barcelona, Madrid, Seville, etc., to the top tourist destinations in Morocco, which in my mind are Marrakech and Fes (though there are definitely additional worthwhile destinations). Flight availability to and from Morocco may affect the order in which you visit your Spanish destinations. I'd use skyscanner.com to check on flight options.

Aside from Granada, which is a bit awkward to get to at the moment because the rail line is still under construction, you can move between many of you key destinations quite rapidly by train. AVE service connects Barcelona to Madrid, Cordoba and Seville. Granada involves at least one segment of bus travel.

Since you need to end up in Madrid, it would be great if you could fly from your final Moroccan destination to somewhere in southern Andalucía (Malaga or Seville, I guess). However, I don't know that such flights exist.

I haven't been to Morocco recently and am not up to speed on where train service is available. I remember to taking some buses and some "grand taxis", which are shared vehicles.

Are you interested in Barcelona's modernista sights? the La Sagrada Familia? If so, you probably need more days in Barcelona. Probably the best way to go south from Barcelona is to fly to Sevilla, or else take a train, which goes through, Madrid, I believe. Cordoba is between Madrid and Sevilla and I enjoyed it very much. You could go Barcelona to Cordoba to Sevilla via train or save Cordoba for your route back to Madrid. I think the "main" cities (Sevilla, Cordoba, Granada) in Andalusia each merit at least a 2 night stay, Sevilla perhaps 4. If you want you could stay longer in Sevilla and do day trips to Jerez, Cadiz and/or Arcos, I'd be more inclined to stay somewhere on the coast after Sevilla, perhaps Jerez to do the day trips, it just depends on where you want to be and how many days you want to allocate to Spain vs. Morocco. You have a lot of time, but Spain is big and there are a lot of wonderful places to visit.

You know the best way to do this? Use Morocco as your connection between Barcelona and Madrid. I'm serious.

There are (super-cheap) flights between Barcelona and Marrakech or Fes.
There's a train between Marakech and Fes.
There are (super-cheap) flights between Madrid and Marrakech or Fes, too.

Fly from Barcelona to Fes (or Marrakech). Train between Fes and Marrakech. Fly back to Spain from there.

It sounds crazy, but it works great - turns out that train in Morocco makes a great way to get between Barcelona and Madrid.

The only challenge is that the low-fare airlines that fly between Spain and Morocco do not fly those routes every day - typically they go 2 or 3 times a week. So you need to coordinate the flights so they line up with the days you want to go. It's not difficult, but it requires more than a 5 second, brain-dead airline search (takes about 5 minutes). Easy enough, works great.

Wow, David! What a great idea. I love this forum!

Actually, Morocco also works as a way to efficiently connect Spain to other parts of the continent...

On one trip to Spain, my flight back to the US left from Paris (I was using FF miles, so had some unusual routings). Rather than working my way from Spain to Paris to catch my flight home, I flew to Marrakech, spent a week in Morocco, took the train to Fes, then flew from Fes to Paris. That flight was about $75 (cheaper than it would have been to fly directly from Madrid to Paris). Worked out great (and gave me an excuse to spend a few days in Paris before heading home).

The larger lesson I learned is that with the advent of low cost airlines flying everywhere around Europe (and beyond), it's easy to do creative routings - like using the train between Fes and Marrakech as a more interesting substitute for the train between Barcelona and Madrid. This assumes you are interested in going to Morocco and have at least a few days to throw at that little side-adventure, of course...but it's a fun way to splice in an adventure you might not have otherwise thought to take!

I agree. I need to spend more time in Barcelona. I will add to my hotel now.

I had not even thought about flying to Morocco. What a great idea. Thank you all for the suggestions. This is information I really needed.

When you hear great advice you jump on it. Thank you everyone! The plane ticket (Barcelona to Marrakesh) saved me days of travel and cost me about $100 including checking a bag and upgrading my seat. I fell for the upgrades but they were all reasonable. The main ticket was only $54.

I will be spending 7 nights in Barcelona - which will give me 6 days there. That sounds right to me. I may change hotels after my 4 nights.

At the moment the rest of my plan is just to do Morocco, Andalusia, then Madrid (I leave from there).

Since I got such good advice from you the first time... here is another question. I will be arriving in Marrakesh December 15th. I go back to the USA on January 11th. Is there any neat place to be on Christmas? Advice on the number of days where?

I am a female and not a partier if that changes your answer. I won't be going out on New Years but know I should stay put somewhere around those days (I find it is best not to travel on party days).

Thanks again,
Shawn

Since you're flying into Marrakech, you should try to fly out of Fes - the two best cities to see in Morocco. From this wiki page the only viable option is to fly Ryanair to Sevilla. I would recommend 3-4N in Marrakech with a day trip to Essaouira, then 2-3N in Fes. That leaves you nearly 3 weeks for Andalucia and Madrid.

In Andalucia, after a few days in Sevilla, rent car and take 2-3 days to drive through the hills to see the pueblos blancos (white hill towns), based in Ronda. Then drive via Antequera to Granada (2-3N) and return the car, then train or bus to Cordoba (2N), then train to Toledo (2N) and end in Madrid.

You can day trip from Sevilla by train to Jerez and Cadiz. How much time you spend in Madrid depends on your love of European painting. If that's your thing, you need 2 full days for the 3 great art museums and at least one more for other sights, like the palace (one of the best in Europe), the Naval Museum (think golden age of exploration).

Fes has especially great opportunities for craft-shopping (window-shopping or actually buying). If you enjoy that, you'll want extra time in Fes. Morocco, in general, has great ceramics, wood work, copper, etc.

You're probably more likely to get back to Spain than to Morocco, so I'd encourage you to spend as much time as you need to see the Moroccan places that sound interesting to you, even at the expense of having to skip some key Spanish destinations. You can see them next time.

Hello, here's a rough schedule I put together, incorporating some of the ideas that have been brought up:

Fly into Barcelona
Barcelona (5 nights)
{Day trip to Tarragona
{Day trip to Montserrat

AVE Train to Girona
Girona (3 nights)
{Day trip to medieval Catalan villages
{Day trip to Dali museum and house

AVE Train to Sants and then R2N bus to El Prat, Fly to Morocco
Moroccan escapade (9 nights)

Fly in to Sevilla
Sevilla (4 nights)
{Day trip to Jerez

Rent a car in Sevilla and drive to Ronda
Ronda (2 nights)
{Explore los pueblos blancos

Drive to Granada and drop off car
Granada (2 nights)

Bus to Córdoba
Córdoba (2 nights)

AVE train to Madrid
Madrid (4 nights)
{Day trip to Segovia
{Day trip to Cuenca

AVE train to Toledo
Toledo (2 nights)

AVE train back to Madrid
Madrid (1 night)
Fly out of Madrid

I was able to get it to exactly 34 nights, of course one can shift around nights depending on your interests and research. Hope this helps :)

Carlos, you can plan a trip for me any time!

Of course Jules, just give me a moment to calculate my exorbitant consulting fees! :)

Wow thank you everyone!

Fly in to Barcelona (6)
- visit Montserrat & Figueres
Fly to Marrakesh (4)
Train to Casablanca (3)
- visit Rabat
Train to Fez (4)
- visit Meknes
Fly to Madrid, then train to Toledo (2)
Train via Madrid to Córdoba (2)
Train to Sevilla (4)
- visit Jerez & Cadiz
Train to Ronda (2)
Train to Granada (3)
Train to Madrid (4)
- visit Segovia & El Escorial
Fly out of Madrid

David, why three nights in Casablanca with just one side-trip? When I was there (30ish years ago) it was a nice, clean modern city with not a great deal to interest a tourist. If I were flying into/out of Marrakech and Fes, I wouldn't go to Casablanca at all.

Thank you, everyone, again.

I thought you all would enjoy an update since you helped me so much and gave me such great info. I booked the plane from Fez to Sevilla. I had to go with the December 23rd flight which was the only inexpensive flight day. That means I have 8 nights in Morocco instead of 9, although I do arrive in Marrakesh at 9.20AM and leave at 18.20 on the 23rd.

Any more advice please let me know.

@acraven, Hassan II Mosque in Casablanca was completed in 1993 and is somewhat of a drawcard. Rabat may offer more interest and be a better base. Sorry, Morocco is not my area of expertise.

Aah, the mosque didn't exist when I was there. I had no objection to Casablanca (I remember a lot of fountains, which were much appreciated in the heat); it's just that everywhere else seemed so much more atmospheric. I remember Rabat as being more distinctive.