Spain: Salamanca, Caceres, Sevilla

Assuming Salamanca, Caceres, and Seville are where you want to go in Spain, fly into Madrid. Take the train to Salamanca, the bus to Caceres, and the train on to Seville. Fly from Seville to London. Fly home from London.

Thanks! Can we book the trains and buses in advance, or is that something to do there? Also, after a 10 hour or so flight and multiple time zones, we are wondering if it's feasible to head straight to Salamanca, or if we should plan a night or two in Madrid (we've seen Madrid before). We are 60 somethings and want the least stress possible.

Most of the buses in and out of Caceres are run by ALSA, which was reliable for me in 2016, and the buses were comfortable.

From Salamanca to Caceres a bus is the clear best choice unless you want to rent a car and drive yourself. It may prove better to travel from Caceres to Seville by bus as well. That's a bit faster than the one direct train per day, a regional that departs at 8:05 AM. The other rail options require you to travel back to Madrid and out again, and they take an incredibly long time.

Schedules, especially bus schedules, often vary significantly by the day of the week, so I suggest looking at that factor now so you'll know whether there are days best avoided for travel. See alsa.com. You may not be able to see March/April schedules now, so you may need to look at November or December. Avoid Christmas week, which might be different.

Should you decide to drive, which will be faster than the bus, visiting the interesting town of Trujillo on the way from Salamanca to Caceres appears to add about 1 hour of driving time (per viamichelin.com), and Merida is on the way from Caceres to Sevile. Merida is not Spain's most attractive city, but it has some Roman ruins and a good archaeological museum.

I'd look at multi-city flights into Madrid and out of London and price the middle leg (Seville-London) separately. Then price the full three-leg itinerary together. There are probably bargains to be had on the Seville to London run, so I think buying that separately may be cheaper, but March/April is probably a busy time on that route, so the ticket cost may increase substantially as you get closer to your travel date.

Thank you so much! Great information! I think we will take the bus as you suggest. We plan to do a day trip to Merida from Caceres to see those Roman ruins. My husband saw them as a teenager and says they are amazing. We are thinking maybe 5 nights in Salamanca, 3 or 4 in Caceres, and at least a week in Sevilla. I'm glad to hear there are flights from Sevilla to London. We were afraid we'd have to make our way to Malaga to fly.

I agree with acraven, Mérida is worth considering. I liked Caceres even more.
If taking public transport, it's worth checking the available sources beforehand. Many times buses are much more frequent (convenient) than trains. Sometimes there is only one choice, either bus or train.

Thanks everyone! This has been a big help!

You may get a better price to buy the Sevilla-London flight leg separately, rather than as part of your trans-Atlantic "multi-city" flight itinerary. Try www.skyscanner.com to find more of the intra-European airlines.

Thank you all! Big help! 😊🐳