Seville or Cordoba for Short Stay

Captain ED - Spend all 3 nights in Seville - Day trip to Jerez de la Frontera and Cordoba from Seville during those 3 days.

If they spend three nights in Seville and take two day-trips, when are they going to see Seville?

If you’re coming from Granada, your time in Seville will probably begin around noon, so that gives you 2 1/2 days. I would spend all of it in Seville. (And I’m a person who likes to move around a lot.)

Ditto spending all three nights in Sevilla and taking a day trip.

CaptainEd, here’s an excerpt from my trip report - what we did while in Seville in 2017:

Seville (4 nights): Seville was a favorite!
We stayed at a wonderful apartment during our 4 days in Seville. Apartamento Logia Sevilla, Lirio 9 found through Booking.com was perfect – a spacious apartment on the first floor of a home owned by an architect & his family. His wife, Leonor, was our main contact and so welcoming! She gave us a map marked with the neighborhood market, tapa recommendations, etc. Each morning my husband surprised me with fantastic pastries from nearby Pany Piu while I was getting ready. We wanted to be close to the sites but have a good night’s sleep. This location was perfect and had everything we would want in an apartment.

Our first morning started with a planned bike tour with See by bike Sevilla. We’ve taken bike tours during a few past trips and really enjoy them. Adriana led our 3-hour bike tour through a thorough path of all of the major sites, explaining the history. We also saw more interesting parts of the Plaza de Espana area than when we had walked there by ourselves. Seville was an excellent town for a bike tour since it’s so flat – an easy ride. The entire team at See by bike were friendly – highly recommend.

We had on-line reservations for Royal Alcazar that afternoon (again didn’t need to wait in line!) – beautiful, enjoyed so much of the history, and we spent relaxing time in the gardens after running through the labyrinth!

The next day we participated in a planned Market/Cooking class with Taller Andaluz de Cocina Cooking School. This was one of my husband’s favorite events! Since the kitchen classroom is located in the Triana Food Market, Jessica began the class by showing & explaining specific foods in the market, gathering a few ingredients, and then Chef José Manuel walked our small group through the specific Do’s & Don’t steps to making a perfect paella (& how the word “paella” is used too loosely by restaurants). We finished with a full meal and left satiated and happy! That evening, we walked over to La Carboneria Bar to see some flamenco since it’s mentioned in the RS Spain book and was only a few blocks from our apartment. We arrived to see the last 10 minutes of flamenco so decided we should book a reservation at one of the shows for the next night.

Our last morning, we walked over to the Triana neighborhood – well acquainted after seeing it during our bike tour & cooking class. I’d found recommendations for Ceramica Triana on-line before our trip for my main Spain souvenir. We toured the informative ceramic museum next door that detailed both ceramic & Triana’s history before selecting a beautifully painted pitcher at the store. That night we attended a flamenco show at La Casa del Flamenco. I appreciated that the setting was intimate without dinner noise to distract the dancers & music. We were glad we didn’t just see the flamenco from the previous night.

Where are you going after the 3 nights? It's unclear since you say it's the end of your trip. If you are flying out of Sevilla, what time is your flight?

Thanks for the replies. It sounds like the general consensus is to spend the entire time in Seville.

From Seville/Cordoba we head to Madrid (two nights) and fly home from there.

Spending all 3 nights in Sevilla is OK. Spending all 3 nights in Cordoba is OK. Spending all 3 nights in Sevilla and doing 1-2 daytrips to places other than Cordoba is OK.

Spending all nights in Sevilla and doing a daytrip to Cordoba makes no sense if you'll end your trip by taking the train from Sevilla to Madrid. This way you'll travel the Sevilla - Cordoba leg 3 times instead of just once would you stop for a night in Cordoba en route to Madrid.

"and save Cordoba for another trip"

If you believe there will be another trip (and I'm sure you'll want one given how many fall in love with Spain after the first trip), then a counterintuitive plan might be to spend the three nights in Cordoba and save Sevilla for the next trip, when you have the time to see it more thoroughly (Sevilla is Spain's best city and really requires at least four full days to visit it as a minimum).

After 24 days, you might want a relaxing end before going home. Cordoba provides that. There is enough to see to fill a gentle couple of days at least, and an easy half-day trip option to the Medina Azahara ruins. Plus it's a very atmospheric town within the walls, especially in the evenings when the crowds have gone. An ideal place to end your holiday and bask in Andalucian culture.

If you don't spend a night in Cordoba, you could stop there on your way from Sevilla to Madrid. There's luggage storage at the bus station across the street from the train station.

Well, for me, that decision is easy. I would spend 3 nights in Sevilla, another one in Cordoba and the last night in Madrid. Madrid is fun and lovely, but it doesn't even come close to other more historic cities in Spain. In Andalusia, that would be Sevilla, Cordoba and Granada. For our trip, we spent 3 nights in Sevilla (no day trips), 2 nights in Cordoba and 2 in Granada. We might have enjoyed another night in Sevilla, and if we had more time, I would have added Cadiz. We only had one day in Madrid and spent it going on a day trip to Segovia.