Hi all,
My family and I are planning to go to Europe and Spain is one of our country destination. We are planning to travel around within 9 days with the following itinerary:
Madrid (3 nights), Cordoba (2 nights), Barcelona (3 nights)
Should we replace a day in Madrid or Barcelona and squeeze in Seville or Granada? or just stick with the original plan? We are thinking of traveling by train between the cities. Any suggestion would be very helpful.
Thank you.
Train travel in Spain is great so don't fret about that. I'd pick Seville over Cordoba personally though it depends on what you want. There's more to do in Seville and that's why we picked it over Cordoba. Plus I loved Segovia which was a short train trip from Madrid. You'll have a blast with whatever you chose and will lament the things you missed :)
With just 8 nights I would leave Barcelona for a future visit.
Madrid (3 nights),
Granada (2 nights),
Sevilla (3 nights) with a day to Cordoba
Otherwise, split your time evenly.
Madrid (4 nights) with a day to Toledo
Barcelona (4 nights)
you've done research and have picked the cities that most attracted you;
so stick with those and when you get to Cordoba decide if you want to make the daytrip to either Granada or Seville.
I like the fact that you realize that you don't have enough time to "squeeze in" all your desired destinations into this short visit to Spain.
As tempting as it may be to want to visit, Madrid, Córdoba, Barcelona, Sevilla, and Granada, I think you'll need to choose your top 2 and build an itinerary from there.
I like David's suggestions, but as Jazz+ travels has pointed out, this is your trip, and ultimately your priorities will prevail.
Having said all this, I would not recommend taking a day trip from Córdoba to Granada, mainly because it would be a very long day (~2.5 hours each way), and you won't have enough time to see the main sites there.
If I only had 8 nights in Spain, I'd choose, Córdoba, Sevilla and Toledo ;-)
Have a wonderful trip!
Granada's tough as a spur-of-the-moment side-trip since Alhambra tickets tend to sell out early.
Thank you so much for all of your suggestions! Will definitely help us finalize our itinerary.
One other thoughts, will language be an obstacle for our travel? Since none of our family member speak spanish, this become one of our concerns
On my trips to Spain in 1995 and 2006, I found very little English (and this was in touristed cities like Madrid, Barcelona, Seville, Cordoba, and Granada). However, on my September 2015 trip, I definitely found more English in Madrid and Barcelona than I had on prior trips.
I don't know if I was doing something different or if there really was more English, but I do feel that in the places you want to go, you won't have much trouble with only English. Of course, the more Spanish you can speak, the better. It's not hard to learn basics (please, thank you, hello, goodbye, where's the toilet?, and numbers from 1-10 are a great start). Get one of those "Spanish for Travelers" CD's (try your library first), but make sure it's for Spain and not Latin America.
One definite issue is that the menu del dia (the set menu of the day, served at lunch) is not only a great bargain (€10-12 for 3-4 courses), but also has more variety than some other food choices (which, if you're careful, can seem to consist of nothing but ham and sea creatures). However, since the menu del dia changes daily, it is usually handwritten in Spanish only. Bringing a phrasebook to translate it may help.
