Southern Spain Home Base or Move Around a Lot

Posted by pmctague on 07/07/18 04:08 AM

Hello, my husband and I are heading to Spain in late September and we only have a week when you subtract travel days. We are flying out of Lisbon to go back home and want to spend 3-4 days there. We are flying into Madrid and then planning to head to southern Spain after a day.

What are the can't miss cities? Is there one town you would recommend staying in and then taking day trips or would you recommend moving around a few times. We are ok to do that if it's the best bet, but prefer to be in one location for a couple days.

Thanks in advance for your advice.

Pam

Posted by Nestor

Virginia

07/07/18 12:20 PM

597 posts

Seven days is really not a long time. If you head for southern Spain, how were you planning on getting to Lisbon?
Sevilla seems to offer a direct flight to Lisbon which might make it a feasible option.
Sevilla also offers a variety of day trips.
If you do go south I would tell you to go the same day you arrive at Madrid.
Your bags will be packed and ready to go.
I would recommend that you stay in Madrid with day trips to Toledo, Segovia, Avila or Salamanca.
You will loose 1/2 day every time you move to a new lodging.
Staying put maximizes your sigh seeing time. Enjoy!

Posted by Harold

New York, NY, USA

07/07/18 04:45 PM

11294 posts

First, as Nestor asks, how are you getting from southern Spain to Lisbon? That will be a part of answering where you should go.

The "big three" in southern Spain are Granada, Seville, and Cordoba. With a week, you can hit the highlights of all three (but not more than that), as long as you don't mind a lot of time in transit and as long as you can then get to your exit point for Portugal. If you want to see the Alhambra in Granada, look NOW to see if you can get tickets for your dates. If you can't, you can save Granada for another trip, and just see Cordoba and Seville at a more relaxed pace, possibly including trips to other Andalusian places (Ronda, Arcos, Jerez).

There are high speed trains (AVE or AVANT) from Madrid to Cordoba to Seville, so these are easy to connect. For Granada, you can take a train-bus combo (run by the train company while they finish the high speed rail construction), or a bus. Don't fear Spanish buses - they're much nicer than US ones.

Do you have Rick's Spain book? He has LOTS of details on all these cities.

Posted by David in Brisbane

Brisbane, Australia

07/08/18 06:40 AM

7175 posts

Day
0. Arrive in Granada (2N)
1. Visit the Alhambra
2. Train to Ronda (2N)
3. Ronda
4. Train to Seville (4N)
5. Seville
6. Day to Cordoba for the Mezquita
7. Seville (or day to Jerez)
8. Depart from Seville

Posted by pmctague OP

07/08/18 03:14 PM

4 posts

Thank you so much for all the responses. It really helps our planning.

We are flying Seville to Lisbon to maximize time towards the end and have Rick’s Spain book for all the sites. Thanks again!