South of Spain - Seville, Cordoba, Granada

3 fantastic cities of Andalucia, but only 5 nights, quite the predicament!

As much as it pains me (Cordoba is really worth 2 nights at least), I would go with option B - 3 nights in Sevilla, day trip to Cordoba and then 2 nights in Granada, this is if you are certain you won't be around these parts any time soon. Now, if you know you are coming back to Spain in the future, specifically Madrid area, then Cordoba is easy to add to Madrid as well.

Also, good thought to drop the car in Sevilla, it's unnecessary in these 3 cities and would only be a hindrance.

PS: Oct 12 is our National Day in Spain, so people will have the day off, wherever you will be, you may encounter closures of most shops and many restaurants in the non touristy areas. Though public transport will be unaffected.

Visiting Cordoba for the day is worth it. If there was a way you could squeeze it in between Seville and Madrid, that would be best.

There is so much to do in Seville, that three days hardly covers it. If you want to take one of those days and hop to Cordoba for the day, that could work.

Take the bus from Seville to Granada. There are many more available times, and it can be quite inexpensive.

You need 2 N in Granada, 10/16-17.

Drop the car in Sevilla 2N 10/14-15. Enjoy Sevilla.
Train or bus to Granada 2N, 10/16-17. You only need 2.
Train or bus to Cordoba 1N, 10/18. There is enough to fill 2 days, but sadly, you only have one.
Train to Madrid 10/19.

There's a 7 pm bus from Granada to Cordoba, you'd arrive at 9.30, just in time to check in to your hotel and go out for dinner.

Thanks for the tips/suggestions everyone! I guess it looks like Cordoba is not to be missed. Too bad we don't have any more time than we do.

I am definitely leaning a little more towards Option B - because this would mean only changing hotels (unpacking and packing) twice instead of 3x if we were to opt out to stay in Cordoba overnight. I really doubt we would be going back to Spain any time soon after this trip so we will definitely need to see Cordoba in this trip. So it will be...

10/14 - 10/16 - 2N in Sevilla, with a day trip to Cordoba in between
10/16 - 10/19 - 3N in Granada
10/19 - 10/20 - Train to Madrid, overnight in Madrid
10/20 - fly back home from Madrid

Luckily, the wedding will be on 10/12, during the national holiday so it won't affect sight seeing activities :)

I did not realize this...but it seems like there isn't a high-speed train from Granada to Madrid. Did I get this right? what's your suggestion as far as making the trek from Granada to Madrid? I can see that we can also fly from Granada to Madrid...

a) There are high-speed trains between Granada and Madrird. If the ones for 19/Oct aren't showing on Renfe yet, try searching for 5/Oct to get an idea of frequency and journey time. When you come to buy, some find it easier to use an on-line agency like "trainline.com" - because Renfe can be difficult with some foreign cards - there may be a small fee.

b) However, regarding your latest itinerary, I think you got a better suggestion from Chani. You don't have enough time in Sevilla and certainly not to make a day-trip to Cordoba. Instead, move Cordoba to the end after Granada. If you dont want to change hotels on the 18th, you could always go on the 19th to Cordoba, spend the day and catch the late train onto Madrid.

Angeline,

10/14 - 10/16 - 2N in Sevilla, with a day trip to Cordoba in between

Keep in mind that 2 nights translates to one full day to explore Sevilla, thus you don’t have time to day trip to Córdoba.

Do consider Chani’s advise to spend an overnight in beautiful Córdoba, you won’t regret it!

If you’d rather not spend an overnight in Córdoba, then I’d suggest going back to your original option B: 3N in Sevilla and 2N in Granada.

Nick’s suggestion to visit Córdoba en-route to Madrid (from Granada) is another good option.

You can leave your luggage at the bus station in Córdoba which is located right across the street from the train station.

I’ve read that there’s limited space for left luggage in Córdoba. I’ve not used this service so can’t guarantee it.
Perhaps others will chime in with more information.

Enjoy your time in beautiful Spain!

It's really risky, when laying out an itinerary, to attach the same date to two different cities. It can lead the traveler as well as responders to think there is more time than is really available. I think this is a more realistic way of representing the most recently proposed itinerary:

10/14: Drive to Seville from Jimena de la Frontera (2 nights). Day-trip to Cordoba.
10/16: Train to Granada (3 nights)
10/19: Train to Madrid (1 night)
10/20: Fly home from MAD

The above makes it clear how painfully short the time in Seville would be--mere hours for a large city.

Again, I appreciate the responses! As I think more, perhaps leaving Cordoba in the end might make better sense? I have some questions.

These are a couple itineraries I am considering:

Option D
10/14: Drive to Seville from Jimena de la Frontera (2 nights).
10/16: Train to Granada (3 nights)
10/19: Day-trip to Cordoba, THEN train to Madrid later in the day (1 night)
10/20: Fly home from MAD

Option E: I am thinking of spending the night in Cordoba to give it a little more time since flight out of MAD isn't until 5PM the next day (10/20)
10/14: Drive to Seville from Jimena de la Frontera (2 nights).
10/16: Train to Granada (3 nights)
10/19: Cordoba (1 night)
10/20: Train to MAD in the morning for a 5PM flight

On Option E, I am cutting it too close since I won't be heading to MAD until 10/20 in the morning? How reliable are trains in the Spain? Another thought I had was to fly from Seville to Madrid as well... I really don't know what makes most sense as far as reliability with transportation.

Hi, option E seems like an interesting workable solution, if you have the flight at 5:00 pm in Madrid and leave Cordoba in the morning, I would say it's possible to make it. Trains in Spain, especially the AVE are very reliable. On two occasions I was in another city in Spain and had a transatlantic flight later in the day, and was able to make it fine both times with the AVE, one time was from Zaragoza to fly out of Barcelona and another was Barcelona to fly out of Madrid.

Thanks Carlos! That's comforting to know that you think it's a workable solution :) . Is MAD airport pretty easy to get through? How early would you suggest that we get there?

Originally, I was thinking we'd leave Granada in the morning (10/19) and spend a day in Madrid since our flight isn't til later in the day on 10/20 but it looks to me that it makes more sense to spend it in a town like Cordoba instead of trying to tackle another huge city in just a day.

What's your risk tolerance? Mine is quite low where big bucks are concerned, and I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to fully enjoy time in Cordoba, thinking about what it might cost to buy last-minute replacement one-way tickets home in the admittedly-unlikely event something went wrong.

The odds are excellent that nothing bad would happen, but you'd need to pad that departure-day travel schedule every step of the way in case of minor delays or the cancellation of one train (yours). It's easy to look at the train schedule, see that most trains from Cordoba to Madrid take under 2 hours, and think, "Piece of cake!"

But the train trip itself is only part of the story. You need to be in the airport 3 hours before your departure time; that's 2 PM. You can't just hop on a train in Cordoba at noon. The train from Cordoba doesn't take you to the Madrid airport. You'll need to take a taxi, a local train, the Metro or a bus from Atocha Station to the airport. Metro Line 8, serving the airport, doesn't go anywhere near Atocha Station. Google Maps is currently estimating an hour for the trip by public transit as of 11 PM Madrid time. It could be faster if you're lucky with the transit schedules, but the local trains running to the airport only depart every 30 minutes. Also, Atocha Station is large and potentially confusing; you won't have a simple cross-platform change there and would need to allow some time for that connection.

A taxi would take less than an hour, in theory, but there might be a waiting line at the station, and the impact of traffic is difficult to predict. Bottom line: I know I'd be allowing at least 90 minutes for the Atocha-airport trek, just to be safe.

After arriving at the airport you'll need to find you way to the appropriate check-in counter. 10 minutes? 15 minutes? So I'd want to be confident of arriving at Atocha about 2 hours before I was due at the airport. That means arriving around noon. There's a 9:59 train from Cordoba scheduled to arrive at Atocha at 11:50 AM. I'd be taking an earlier train to cater to the possibility of a cancellation or delay, but I'm hyper-conservative. You might decide the 9:59 is early enough.

What time are you going to need to leave your hotel in Cordoba to be sure of making that 9:59 train? Are you really going to accomplish anything at all, sightseeing-wise, in Cordoba that day? I say you will not. So it's a matter of how much time you lose the evening before by having to take a train to Madrid rather than being able to sleep in Cordoba that night.

There are trains leaving Cordoba at 9:10 and 9:48 PM on Saturday, October 19. I don't think you lose a lot of time in Cordoba by taking one of those trains. I'd opt for the 9:10, preferring to avoid the last scheduled transportation of the day.

You make some good points there acraven! I was also thinking of my risk tolerance on this topic. You do make a really good point that we won't really be seeing anything more in Cordoba on the morning of 10/20 as I was thinking of taking that 9AM train to Madrid to give ourselves a decent amount of time.

The only pro I see in staying in Cordoba is to be able to just enjoy ourselves at night (see it at sunset and have a nice leisurely dinner elsewhere). The con to this will be that we'll be traveling the entire day of the 20th, including our 10hour flight to the US, which is a lot and tiring in of itself. And of course, the potential of cancellations, getting lost, etc the next day.

The pro to leaving Cordoba late at night into Madrid is we can take the 20th pretty easily until our flight at 5PM. I honestly don't know how much we can do in Madrid knowing that we have a 5PM flight to catch which means we'd want to head to the airport by 12 - 1PM anyway. Besides having breakfast somewhere, we're probably ready to head out at this point since it will be the end of our 2 week trip.

I think you've nailed the considerations.

This is one of the reasons it's best to end a trip by visiting the city from which you're departing. That way, the last day doesn't feel semi-wasted. But on a short trip, sometimes the departure city doesn't rank high enough to make the final cut. For the purposes of just wandering and enjoying myself, I certainly prefer Cordoba to Madrid.

And even with all the considerations, I really still want to stay in Cordoba overnight. haha. Coz I feel like i'd be wasting time in my Madrid hotel on 10/20, until my departure. I guess I should look up and see what I can do in Madrid for say, 4 hours, before heading to the airport.

So stay we stay in Madrid overnight, does anyone have any suggestion on where to stay so we can walk around and do some "sight-seeing" for a few hours before heading to the airport? At least for this, I feel that we would just take the taxi to the airport and that's that.

Now if we decide to stay in Cordoba, seems like there are several options to get transferred from Atocha station to either train/metro/taxi to the airport terminal (looks like our terminal is usually terminal 2, but that is also subject to change). Is anyone familiar of how "easy" this transfer is once we get into Madrid?

Hi Angelie, sorry it took me a while to respond, both you and Acraven make good points about staying the night before the flight in Madrid. To that, I would say that you have a certain flexibility, as your plane leaves at 5:00 pm, if it would be something like 2:00 pm then that would be cutting it a bit close.

If you show up to the airport around 2-3 pm, before the flight time, I think you will be pretty safe. It will take you 2:15 hr AVE from Cordoba + 20 min taxi (best option) to Barajas airport from Atocha, so if you leave Cordoba some time around 11:30 am you should be fine. You can then also eat lunch on the train, there are fairly decent dining car on the AVEs.

For me, it comes down to where you want to spend your last night in Spain, in the whitewashed old town of Cordoba or in a hotel next to Barajas airport. Cordoba is most magical in the golden hours of the afternoon and evening, when all the day trippers from Sevilla are gone and you practically have the town to yourself!

Plus, you will not able to do much in Madrid the day of your flight and you will have to find luggage storage for a few hours as I assume you must check out at noon, unless you can extend the check out time?

Last time I was in Cordoba, I went to the airport from there.

I had an 11.10 pm flight, so I had a lot of time to make last-minute adjustments if there was a train issue (down for repairs, strike, etc.). I took the 5.30 pm train from Cordoba (booked a couple days in advance - full flex ticket), that arrived at at 7.15. That gave me an hour to get from Atocha to the airport on the Cercanias and I was familiar with the train station, knew exactly how to get from train to train. I also knew that I would probably not need more than 2 hours at the airport because:
1. A late night flight = short lines at passport and security;
2. I flew on a small airline so the only people at the check-in counters were passengers on that flight.

Carlos and Chani, these are super helpful!

Carlos, the single best reason I want (what I am leaning towards) to stay in Cordoba for the night are for the reasons you mentioned - experiencing the magic of the town when all of the day trippers have left! It sounds so lovely.

Do you guys suggest either taking Cercanias or a taxi mid-day to the airport? Chani, how easy it is to get on the Cercanias? Will it be pretty confusing for newbies?

I used the airport bus twice to get from the airport to town. The train probably makes more sense in your case, assuming you're arriving from Cordoba that morning by train. Travel time on the train is a good bit faster. The bus is scheduled to take about 40 minutes but does run more often (every 18 minutes on weekends and holidays). The bus stop is right outside Atocha--perhaps even under cover.

It's probably not a bad idea to know about the bus option, just in case you learn of a train issue (like a strike).

If it were up to me, and I were traveling with multiple people with luggages, I would probably go with a taxi from Atocha station to Barajas airport, which should take around 20 min if traffic is normal, but may cost 25-30 Euros. Though I would not discount the train or bus options too.

We flew between Granada and Barcelona and it worked well. I think there are flights between Madrid and Granada.

Granada is not the easiest place to get to, unless from Seville.