Spain Itinerary

Leon! The breathtaking cathedral, with its 19,000 sq feet of stained glass, is a daytrip north of Madrid.

I agree with the previous post -- I once went to two Christmases in a row in the León cathedral. (I'm not even catholic.)

I love Segovia - they have a really neat castle and beautiful cathedral. It will probably be rather quiet and lovely in December. It's about an hour north of Madrid by train.

My wife and I spent Christmas in Spain last year. We had midnight mass in the Sevilla Cathedral (we aren't catholic either), and it was a very neat experience. Also, we attended a local christmas musical in Tarifa Spain where we were the only no locals (it seemed) there. This was quite special too. I don't think you can go wrong. You will love Spain at christmas time. It is beautiful and a lovely time to visit.

I remember that episode with Samantha Brown! Are the cookies good? I will check out the website for maribelsguide.coma and have a look. Thank you

Thank you for all the wonderful ideas! We really appreciate them.

Segovia is easy to do as a 1 day, day trip. When you get there, you must try the roast piglet, a specialty there. There's a few restaurants which does this, and you need to make reservations.

The one restaurant we went to had a bronze pig on the wall of the restaurant. For the life of me, I cannot remember the name, but its near the plaza square.

Also in Madrid, you should find the cookies sold by the cloistered nuns. The convent sells these cookies and you "speak" to the nuns through a wall and a lazy susan type turntable. We got a kilo worth of lemon cookies. I forgot how much they were... 4 or 5 euros. I saw it on the Passport to Europe with Samantha Brown on the Travel Channel. Also Go to maribelsguide.com. She has some great tips on non touristy stuff including the convent location. If you want to email me, I can look up the convent. Its in one of my journals.

We were in Spain last Christmas. Madrid was awesome...but we also went to Cordoba, Granada, Seville, Malaga and Barcelona. I know you said you wanted to take short side trips only, but I would say, consider taking the AVE down to Cordoba to see the Mezquita and then the AVE down to Seville at least. I am not too religious (not even Christian), but I attended the midnight Christmas mass in Seville Cathedral and it was quite a cultural experience.

In December, its not too touristy -- though its definitely not an "off the beaten" track experience.

If you're in Seville at the beginning of December (8/12) you should definitely be in the Pza. Virgin de los Reyes (next to the cathedral) at midnight. All of the Tunas (university musical/madrigal groups) show up and sing songs and present flowers to the virgin.

Many towns have a convent which will sell baked goods. Quality is generally quite high. After all, those women have few distractions from perfecting their cooking skills. Plus, proceeds are used for charities.

My son arrived in Madrid yesterday and is drinking in the atmosphere! He loves it! He is spending the semester studying there as well as perfecting his Spanish. We will not arrive in Spain until Dec. 20th. We will miss the early Dec. festivities. We will also check out the convents and monastaries. Thank you for your input! Mil gracias!

The cookies were GREAT!!! I'll send you a link of my hubby's blog. I found the information about the pig in Segovia and the covert convent! LOL

Thank you!