Southern Spain Itinerary Help

Madrid is a relatively new city. You won’t be wowed by the architecture. We enjoyed the museums, especially the Prado, but it does not seem to be your passion. Suggestion #1-lob a day off Madrid, add it to Sevilla or, #2, turn that day trip to Toledo into an overnight. Yes, it would mean checking out of the Madrid hotel and back in again (unless you can get to Toledo from Granada-we saw Spain on a RS tour so I’m not much help with transportation) but Toledo was wonderful at night.

Alan provides a good suggestion. Toledo is nice and quiet at night. Consider an earlier bus/train from Grenada to Madrid so once there you can transfer to the train to Toledo and spend the next two nights there (full day in between in Toledo). Then you can take the morning train to Madrid for the remainder of your trip.
Also, read the post of today under Tips & Trip Reports "Trip Report: Our two week family vacation to Spain -- April 2018" for the poster's experiences in several of the cities you plan to visit. Unlike her, however, I enjoyed Sevilla and would want to spend more time there on a future visit. I agree Grenada and Toledo are very enjoyable, and I love Madrid and its more 'modern' (16th century onward) architecture (I am also a fan of the food and art there).
An interesting, not so artsy museum in Madrid is the Museo Arqueológico Nacional at Calle de Serrano 13 (about a block from the Plaza de Colón, between the Colón and Serrano metro stops - just over a block away from either).

You say you have a total of 11 days (not including travel days) but then count your arrival day as one of them. Can you clarify that please?

Hi David, sorry I guess I should have said 11 nights as I wasn't counting the day we would be departing for Spain from the US which is the day before we would arrive in Spain. Day 1 I know is just enough time to maybe grab dinner then go to bed. So really it's 10 full days.

OK. Was just checking we didn't have an extra night to play with.

I would look at train timings and maybe squeeze Granada a little ...

Day 1: Arrival at 4pm in Seville (4N)
Day 2: Seville
Day 3: Day trip to Cordoba
Day 4: Seville
Day 5: Early train to Granada (2N)
Day 6: Granada (Alhambra)
Day 7: Late train to Madrid (5N)
Day 8: Madrid
Day 9: Day to Toledo
Day 10: Day to Segovia
Day 11: Madrid
Day 12: Departure from Madrid

Wow, it took me 5 minutes and side-by-side windows to figure out the difference between your itinerary and David's suggestion, which boils down to taking a morning train from Sevilla on Day 5 instead of an evening train on Day 4. That morning train leaves at 6.35 am (arrives 10.00). I'd rather take the 5.56 pm train (arrives 9.15), and relax after the better part of a day's sightseeing in Sevilla, then drop the bags and go out for dinner in Granada.

I would not allow more than 2 days in Granada, one for the Alhambra, one for the other sights. I had 3 full days there and 2 would have been enough. I was stretching to find things to see on the 3rd day. I would add that day to Sevilla (if you don't find enough in the city to interest you, you can day trip to Jerez, Arcos or Cadiz). Since you aren't especially interested in art, how about spending 2 nights in Toledo. It's 4 hours by train from Granada to Madrid. If you take the 6.45 train from Granada, you can get the 11.20 train from Madrid to Toledo (33 min ride), giving you half a day there on arrival and another a full day. There are 2 later trains from Granada that would allow you to connect to Toledo on the same day, but both mean 70 minutes transfer time instead of 40.

I've enjoyed Madrid, but it definitely has a big-city vibe, lots of traffic (and traffic jams), noise and crowds, not like your other towns. Consider if there's enough to interest you to fill 2 full days there.

We just returned from a 2-week family trip to Spain. Here's my 2 cents' worth:

If you aren't in to art museums, I wouldn't stay in Madrid 5 nights. Or maybe at all. I love Toledo (my whole family did); I would stay there instead, but maybe not 5 nights (see my notes below) and day trip into Madrid. Or, depending on your flight time, stay in Madrid the night before your flight to make it easier to get to the airport; you could train in from Toledo the morning before and have a whole day to get a taste of the city (but then again, I hate switching lodgings and the whole packing/unpacking thing, so that is always a consideration for me).

We loved Granada; we stayed 6 nights on our trip and still had plenty that we didn't get to. I wouldn't cut your time short there (personal preference).

For your overall itinerary, if you like experiencing food, culture, and architecture (like we do), I would tend to spend more time in Andalucia. I would spend fewer days in Toledo/Madrid and add a couple more in Sevilla and/or Granada (or add Cordoba as an overnight or two if you don't mind another hotel change). To me, I feel more "in Spain" the farther south I go, and I find it easier to immerse in the culture. Again, personal preference (and I haven't been north of Madrid, so maybe what I really feel is that the farther away from Madrid I get, the easier it is to immerse....).

No matter what you decide, you will enjoy Spain. There are no bad choices. Have a great trip!

Thank you all so much for the suggestions! It seems the consensus would be it's not necessarily worth spending five nights in Madrid given our interests. I mainly only planned it that way since we are flying out of Madrid, and wanted to do a couple day trips from there but seems it would be doable to do all of that while staying in Toledo instead. Toledo certainly looks like something that is much more up our alley.

Minor comments
a) I would check whether the Alsa coach would be better from Seville to Granada. I don't think the new railway line has opened or will very soon and you'd need to change to a bus anyway.
b) I doubt you would run out of things to do in Granada in your time. I'm sure this is in your guidebook, but the Monastery San Jeronimo and nearby Church and surrounding area to the north of the Cathedral are worth seeing for a few hours. However, if you do want a change then there are plenty of easy day-trips from Granada. Guadix is interesting and easy by public transport. Or for a real change of scene you could go at least a little way into Las Alpujarras by bus (and more if you hired a car or took a tour)
c) Not sure about "wanted to do a couple day trips from there but seems it would be doable to do all of that while staying in Toledo instead" given it and Segovia are on either side of Madrid - but I've never tried going from one to the other. Madrid being between the two is a more obvious day-trip starting place.

What day trips are you considering? I agree that Toledo may not be a great base for day-trips. Your lodgings in Toledo probably won't be terribly close to the train station, so you may have a substantial amount of local-transit time before your train journey even starts, and the same thing on your return.

Nobody has mentioned El Escorial.
Madrid does mean more flexibilitywith more options.

The day trips we really want to do around Madrid are Toledo and Segovia. I now realize getting to Segovia wouldn't be as easy if we based our stay in Toledo as opposed to Madrid. I do think we might at least stay in Toledo one night and try to beat some of the crowds by heading there later in the day and spending the night.

Some months ago I read that something major at El Escorial was closed, so I'd recommend checking on that to be sure of the current situation. I don't remember the details.