Visiting daughter in Madrid

Consider a few days in Barcelona. Much to see. The highlight for me was the Sagrada Familia. Food is great and inexpensive. Easily reached by high speed train from Madrid. A great day trip from Madrid is Toledo. Even better as an overnight.

We visited our son when he was on his study abroad program in Madrid. We stayed in the Hotel Europa on Puerto del Sol. We did one over-night trip to Segovia with a stop in Availa via bus and one day trip to Toledo via bus. The bus system is great in Spain and is more extensive than the train system. The balance of the time was spent in Madrid with our Spanish speaking son as a guide. With the train you could hit Cordoba and Seville as an over-night but that would be pushing it for the time you have.

Toledo is a great day trip from Madrid; easy to reach by train and the best cathedral in Spain. A must see....

I would recommend Segovia too. The aqueduct is simply astonishing. There is a lovely Plaza Mayor and the Alcazar is very pretty. Again, the train is the way to go...

I think Barcelona is a great city but I would skip it with your limited time.

The Prado in Madrid is one of the top museums in the world. It is chock full of masterpieces and is definitely worth an afternoon. Also the Reina Sofia is great for modern art ( including the iconic "Guernica" by Picasso). they are located very close to each other...

Any particular interests? History, art, food? I'm planning my 6th trip, my husband's first. One day trip is a must ...El Escorial and the Valley of the Fallen outside of Madrid. El Escorial is Phillip II's (Mary Tudor's husband and the "Armada" king)monastery/ palace. Fascinating place, especially the Pantheon of Kings. The Valley of the Fallen is close and is a very powerful monument to the people who died during the Spanish Civil War. Franco directed that a basilica be built into the side of a mountain. It is simply amazing...

Train tickets are available about 60 days in advance. I would consider booking online through Rick Steves or the Renfe.com site (only if you have PayPal).

I'm sure that you can tell I love Spain. There is so much to see and do!

I count nine full days, plus some walking-around time on your arrival day.

There are lots of great places to see in Spain, so it depends on what type of places interest you. You should pick up a guidebook to Spain (library works for prelimary research; it needn't be this year's edition) and read about the key destinations. Madrid has three important art museums; if you aren't into art, you won't need a lot of time for Madrid itself. Key day-trips from Madrid include Toledo, Segovia and Cuenca (must buy AVE ticket early else very expensive). There are many other possibilities, but those are my favorites.

So you have three obvious options:

1. Spend all your nights in Madrid and do a bunch of day trips. That's probably best for art-lovers.

2. Head north, then return to Madrid at the end of your trip. You can get to Barcelona fast enough by train to make it a viable second base city. I love it; ten days wasn't long enough for me. Barcelona also has some good side-trip opportunities, among them Girona, Montserrat and Figueres (for the Dali Theatre and Museum).

3. Head south, then return to Madrid at the end of your trip. You can get to Seville relatively quickly by train, and Cordoba is on the way, so it can be a one- or two-night stopover on the way down or back, or it can be visited as a day-trip from Seville. Whether you have time to see anything else down in Andalucía will depend on how much time you want to have left for Madrid and environs.

I wouldn't want to travel both north and south from Madrid, and I'm not sure you'll be able to squeeze in Granada unless you cut your time in the Madrid area very short.

You can save quite a bit of money on train fares by buying tickets early, and I'm sure there will be several busy days around Easter. But the best deals are on non-refundable, non-changeable tickets, so be absolutely certain of your itinerary and your dates before buying the tickets. For some short trips, there's no price advantage to buying ahead of time; that includes trips to Toledo and AVANT trains to Segovia. You can take a look at schedules and fares on the Renfe website. For some trips you may find your dates not yet on sale. As appropriate, check out the round-trip fares. They are sometimes about the same as the one-way cost, or perhaps even less.

In addition, you may do better on hotel rates by not waiting till March to pin things down. Madrid and Barcelona are always a bit pricey, and the Easter period is very popular for travel to Andalucía. You definitely shouldn't wait to book if you want to go to Seville, Cordoba or Granada. You may already be running into some difficulties in finding rooms there.

Tickets to the Alhambra in Granada sell out early, so that is something else that should be checked out before finalizing plans. There are a number of top sights in Barcelona for which you'd want to buy tickets ahead of time to avoid standing in long lines (or possibly not getting in at all). If you decide to include Barcelona in your itinerary, post again and we'll tell you which sights need prior planning.

March
28. Arrive Madrid. Train to Cordoba (2 nts)
29. Mezquita
30. (Good Fri) Train to Sevilla (3 nts)
31. Seville

April
1. (Easter Sun) Sevilla
2. Train to Madrid (5 nts)
3. Madrid
4. Day to Toledo
5. Madrid
6. Day to Segovia
7. Depart Madrid

Book your Seville hotel for Easter ASAP.
Chani will be able to give you specific advice regarding Semana Santa travel.

Since you only have 8 days, I recommend that you stay in Madrid and the local area, or combine it with Sevilla. We did this and took day trips to Toledo, Salamanca, Toledo,El Escorial when we visiting our daughter who studied abroad in Madrid. We also stayed overnight in Avila upon arrival and overnight at a monastery/hotel in the mountains north of Madrid.
If you wanted to go to another city, Sevilla is beautiful and only a two hours or so high speed train ride away from Madrid; you could also stop in Cordoba as the train stops there too. So add a stay in Sevilla with a day trip to Cordoba or stay in Madrid the whole time with day trips.

I've never been in Spain during Holy Week, but I would think that it is very late to make hotel reservations, especially if you're going to Seville. Would historically Spanish, Holy Week events be of interest to you? You also have to contend with holiday closures of some attractions, and perhaps reduced public transportation schedules.

Luckily there is a lot do do in Madrid and nearby. I suggest that you don't pretend that you are going to do a comprehensive tour of Spain in 8 days. We spent 3 weeks on our specifically Spanish vacation, and didn't even get to some of the Rick Steves "musts" (?), like the northeast coast.

Have you and your husband visited Europe before?

Hi, here I am with my take on Semana Santa. . . . was there last year. I would avoid Sevilla on Thursday - that night is the height of the processions and the town will be packed, and many streets will be closed to traffic, hardly the best way to explore the city, even though you can probably still get hotel reservations (at high high season prices). Toledo will also be packed then.

Cordoba is much more low key, so that would be a good place to spend 1 or 2 nights, then on to Granada (dependent on room and Alhambra ticket availability). There is a major procession in Granada on Easter Sunday morning, so you'd need to see the Alhambra on Saturday - don't know what hours, if any, the Alhambra would be open that day since part of the procession takes place there. To clarify - the grounds will be open but the ticketed areas may not be.

I was in Sevilla on Saturday, took an evening train to Cordoba and was there on Easter Sunday. Cordoba was much as usual, and many sights and most (all?) restaurants were open. It was not especially crowded. In Sevilla, it was much closer to "normal" on Saturday.

So if Sevilla is a mess on Holy Thursday, opt for Zaragosa (easily reached by fast train from Madrid) or Valldolid. Both are famous, in Spain, for their big processions. I spent one Holy Thursday in Zaragosa and it's certainly in the top ten experiences of my life. I booked on my way to town, so no trouble finding lodging. There are crowds but few tourists and 26 processions that begin Thursday afternoon and continue to almost dawn.

In general, I think the first decision is whether to stay north or go south. If you go south, you can do a loop that includes Cordoba, Sevilla and Granada. You don't have a lot of time so probably not too much beyond that. Cordoba has an amazing mosque turned cathedral and surrounding medieval quarter. Sevilla has one of the best alcazars and Christopher Columbus' bones are in the cathedral (plus a famous Semana Santa), Grenada has the Alhambra and very interesting medieval center.

If you stay north, you can get to Toledo easily by train and walk from there. It's my favorite medieval center in Spain. I'd suggest a loop by car than includes: Avila, Salamanca, Zamora, Valladolid, and Segovia. Avila's wall is dramatic, Salamanca has one of the best cathedrals, Zamora has a surprising amount of historical sights, Vallodolid has a long list of sights plus Semana Santa, Segovia is a rare place where a castle, medieval center and old aquaduct are all within walking distance. There's also a circa 600 AD Templar style church just outside of town. It's not big or heavily decorated but it's a good representation of a church from that time. There are also three big castles in Valladolid area, Coca, Penafiel, and la Mota - any or all would be worth a visit. Admission to Penafiel includes admission to the wine museum in town, you may be able to kill two birds with one stone. Most of the bodegas in the country don't have drop-in wine tasting (Jerez' sherry producers are the big exception), a reasonable substitute is a local wine museum. They're typically housed in an old bodega and I think all have a wine bar serving local wines.

Madrid, IMO, has few sights past El Prado (a world class gallery). There are a lot of special interest museums but they pale in comparison to seeing other Spanish cities. Madrid is roughly the age of Baltimore, very new by European standards - which leaves it with no medieval center. I did enjoy the Temple Debod, which was donated by Egypt to thank the Spanish for help with the Aswan Dam.

Madrid and Barcelona are fairly infamous for theft, so keep track of your valuables there. You might run into it in Seville during Semana Santa since thieves follow tourists.

I like Barcelona a lot. Don't plan it during Semana Santa unless you specifically want to avoid celebrations. The only sign of Holy Week in Barcelona is added masses in the churches. Barcelona is the least religious city in the least religious area of Spain. There is one procession on Good Friday that was started by Sevilla expats, just so there would be something, but it's not connected with the local church.

George Orwell's book Homage to Catalonia is a good read if you want to know more about the politics and history related to the Spanish Civil War.

I vote for David's itinerary. Save Barcelona for another visit. I recommend the La Latina area of Madrid for your stay - tons of bars and restaurants, walkable to most sites, metro station for travel to train stations for day trips. In September we stayed in a fantastic apartment through Mad4Rent, was called Latina V on C. Cava Alta. This 2 BR 2 BA apartment can be found on several different sites, it was cheapest on Mad4Rent. Attentive, responsive host who agreed to meet our inlaws at 2 am when they arrived! Very clean, good wifi, quiet, safe street. If you are in Madrid on a Sunday morning, don't miss El Rastro market, just a couple of blocks from the apartment.