Traveling in Spain in late March/early April

During that timeframe, you can find snow in most of the mountainous areas and pretty much anyplace from Madrid north. I remember seeing snow when visiting Ávila in March 1979. As far as where to visit, much depends on where you land in Spain and how you plan on getting around; rental car or public transportation.

Too bad you are so far south in Morocco. You could just take the boat from Ceuta to Algeciras. :-)

Andalucia should be quite pleasant that time of year.

I would stay south of Madrid and even along the Med. Do be prepared for rain and cool weather.

I use skyscanner.com to check for intra-European flights. It should be a good source of information about flights between Morocco and Spain as well. Use "Morocco" as your origin and "Spain" as your destination, then choose "Non-stop flights only" if you want to minimize your travel time. I see that there are non-stops to Malaga and Seville as well as to other cities farther north.

Essaouira's airport seems very small. According to Wikipedia, it doesn't have direct flights to any city in Spain, so it appears you'll do best to get to one of the larger Moroccan airports. There's at least the theoretical possibility of flights from Morocco to Seville and Malaga. I suspect some routes may not fly every day, so if you have some date flexibility it will help.

There may be more flights to Madrid than to the cities in Andalucia; I see there's a Marrakech-Madrid option. Once in Madrid there's rapid rail service from heading south to Cordoba, Seville, Malaga and Granada. If the coolish weather in the central part of the country doesn't turn you off, Madrid has a magnificent list of potential day-trips (Toledo, Segovia, Salamanca, Cuenca and others).

The closet major airport to Essaouira is in Marrakech. From there you can fly direct to several locations in Spain including Madrid, Barcelona, Malaga, Valencia, and Sevilla. Private transport from Essaouira takes about 2 1/2 hours. Public bus takes about 3 hours.

You may consider taking the longer trip to Casablanca airport if you find that the cost and frequency of flights are more favorable.

Your responses are so incredibly helpful. Thanks everyone for responding. We're thinking of concentrating on Southern Spain per your suggestions. Maybe flying to Mallorca....Has anyone been to Mallorca at that time of year- late March to early April? Would you recommend going there? Any highlights? How did you travel around in Mallorca? We enjoy hiking. Any trails to recommend?

Mallorca at that time will have pleasant daytime temperatures but there is a risk of rain as well as in Andalucia, April tends to see quite a but of rain. I've been to Mallorca during most times of the year (I'm currently here) and there's no real 'bad' time to visit although the height of summer is often uncomfortably hot. Driving is the best way to get around, the roads are not busy, Palma is the exception, and you can cross the island in under two hours. It will be cooler in the mountain villages and the roads leading through the mountains can be a bit hairy but great fun if you like that sort of thing.

Our next visit to Mallorca after this one will be in April over the Easter break. It's a period where we've been previously on several occasions and it's never disappointed.

Mallorca... Germany's 17th state... Go to the "Ballermann" if you want to see the very worst of German tourists. :-(

But you know what they say: There are so many nice corners to Mallorca, it's underrating Mallorca completely to reduce it to drunk German tourists...

An easy way to find flights is to go to the wiki page for an airport. There'll be a table listing all the airlines and the cities they fly to. For instance, Marrakech is closer to Essaouira and there are flights to Spain from there.

Late March is a great time for Andalucia, mostly warm and sunny, and the orange trees should be blooming - heady scent everywhere. Barcelona to Valencia - also good.

Mallorca... Germany's 17th state... Go to the "Ballermann" if you want to see the very worst of German tourists. :-(

For the same reason avoid Magaluf which is a prime example of the worst of British tourism, S'Arenal could be considered the German equivalent. Germans and Brits overwhelmingly make up the largest tourist contingent to Mallorca however the worst elements are fortunately confined to a few small, well defined areas that can be easily avoided leaving the majority of the island free to be enjoyed by the rest of us.