Spain 1st time

On our first trip, we didn’t include Barcelona, keeping the itinerary in southern Spain. You could do most of your transport by train, but I’d suggest flying from the Costa del Sol (Malaga?) to Madrid.

thank you for your suggestion!

That is really a short amount of time for both Seville & the southern coast. I would suggest skipping Madrid and just fly home from Malaga. Add a day to Seville (Sevilla) & two to the coast. Traveling between locations is going to eat into your short times planned.

I’ll add links to my Spain trip reports this afternoon that have the hotels, etc. where we stayed.

I cannot help with hotels as our trips to Spain were some time ago, but I would suggest…as others likely will too…that you carefully consider the timing. You will pack, check out, travel to the station, travel to your next destination, travel to your lodgings, check in and maybe be ready to set out by early afternoon. It took us a while to figure this out but the hours add up and you’ll have but one solid day and part of another to tour your destination. If this works with your travel style all the better for you. Two nights wasn’t as long as we thought it was. Have a wonderful trip and safe travels.

@Jean: looking forward to your trip information.

I guess I was being too ambitious.

Updated: for March 2025

Barcelona: 3 nights
Valencia: 2 nights
Granada: 2 nights
Seville: 4 nights
Madrid: 3 nights

Here’s my two Spain trip reports - 2017 & 2024:

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports/1st-time-to-spain-trip-report

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports/feb-2024-3-week-southern-spain-trip-report

We really enjoyed our trip in February - so much that reservations for. 2025 were made as soon as we returned.

Relieved to see you've added time to Seville. Now my focus is Barcelona. Three nights at your first stop is just two full days and whatever productive time you have on your arrival day (for me, that is zero usable hours due to jetlag and sleep deprivation). If you primarily want to walk around the Barri Gotic and see some of the funky modernista achitecture in the Eixample area from the outside, you will probably be fine. Going inside La Sagrada Familia, Casa Mila or Casa Batllo, heading up to Parc Guell, etc.--that could make things tight. Those four places, plus the Picasso Museum, require prepurchased, timed tickets because the on-site ticket lines are really long. That makes it difficult to compress your sightseeing schedule, because you really don't know how much time to allow at each stop.

It is a very long slog from Valencia to Granada by public transportation. There are express trains, but on those you go through Madrid, which is quite a detour.

Following up on acraven's post, I just looked at renfe.com for trains from Valencia to Granada, one weekday, one Sunday - schedule is the same. There are 3 trains. The best option is 9.14 am, arriving at 2.52 pm with one train change in Cordoba. Then it's about 3 hours by bus or train from Granada to Sevilla. It's just my opinion, but I think you will spend (waste) too much time in traveling to make it worthwhile to cram in Valencia. You'll do yourselves a favor by adding a night to Barcelona and a night to either Granada or Madrid (depending on what you want to do in Madrid). Or you might consider 2 nights in Toledo before Madrid. It depends on what your main interests are. 2 full days in Madrid is fine if you want to spend one of them in art museums.

MORE time in Seville. Cut Costa del sol, the beaches there are not special at all.
Also, you left out Toledo, the gem of medieval Spain.
Consider
Barcelona 3 nights
Seville 3 nights
Madrid 4 nights that includes day trips to Segovia and Toledo
Granada 1 nights
Valencia 2 nights

I don't like the idea of one night in Granada. It takes a good bit of time to get there, and the Alhambra is a large complex not a single building. Many people send more than half a day at that one sight.