Christmas in Southern Spain

For a truly special Christmas you could always fly to the Canary Islands from southern Spain. Might be a nice treat and would be warmer than Sevilla. We have not driven in the southern area of Spain in December but don't feel you would have any troubles around Sevilla and Cordoba. The Granada area may be otherwise, they do have skiing in their local mountains. Hopefully someone else can help you out with this question. Hasta la Vista!!!

Any of those cities would be a wonderful place to celebrate Christmas, and I would toss in Madrid. The cities are usually festooned with Christmas decorations. Just be aware that Christmas day itself is a relatively low-key, family-oriented affair, much more "religious" in a way than ours in North America. While some families do exchange gifts then, the traditional time for gift-giving is "Three Kings Day," January 6th, to mark the time the Three Kings brought their gifts to the baby Jesus. After Three Kings Day, you'll see tons of sales opening up in the stores! * As for driving, Sevilla would give you more problems than Cordoba, and downtown Granada is virtually inaccessible to cars, except to go to and from your hotel. Assuming you are arriving in Madrid, I would suggest taking the high-speed train to Cordoba (providing that's your first stop) then onto Sevilla, and pick up your car there. Then you can use the car to visit some of the hill towns in the arc between Sevilla and Granada. I would spend some of your nights in the mountain towns on the way from Sevilla to Granada. For advance train ticket deals, check the Spanish rail website, www.renfe.com up to 62 days in advance...you can save up to 60%.

We spent 2 weeks in Seville from just before Xmas several years ago. The weather was very mild, we ate and had coffee etc outdoors during the day and occasionally of an evening. We are Australian so don´t do cold that well. We didn´t use the roof terrace of the apartment much though. It was very lively, everything was open and there were quite a few tourists around, in fact more than any other time we have been aside from Easter. I think many tourists are put off by what they see as extremely hot summers. We now live nearer Granada which is lovely but it will be significantly colder. As will Cordoba. We have not spent any time in Granada that time of the year but I would imagine most attractions are open. The Spanish do not celebrate Xmas as much as other countries - their big day is 6th January - 3 Kings Day.

I've been across to Morocco from Spain three times in December/January. The weather is usually mild but you may be surprised that it is no warmer in Morocco than Spain. Sometimes the reverse. The crossing CAN be a bit rough - take travel sick pills and stay on deck if it's rough [INVALID] the public areas can be horrible(!) Get someone in the passport control queue as soon as you get on board.