Madrid and Andalucia Help

Hi Brian

My wife and I did 14 days in Spain last April. As we had not been there before, we spent 4 nights in Madrid (two day trips to Toledo and to El Escorial) with another day doing the Prado and Royal Palace. Granada is one full day for the Alhambra plus the day you arrive. We spent 2 full days in Seville. Cordoba is a great day trip from Seville. We took the Eurostar and it takes 45 minutes. Hope this helps.

David brings up a good point....you can "do" Cordoba as a day trip from Sevilla on the AVE high speed train. So you should be able to cover Madrid and Toledo, then bus down to Granada (5 hours, about 16 Euro pp, 20 minutes longer than the train, but far cheaper, and there's only one daytime train), bus or train Granada-Sevilla (about 3 hours), then day-trip to Cordoba. For bus schedules and prices (you can order tickets, too), see www.movelia.es. For train ticket purchases, see www.renfe.es (change to English in the lower left, "Seleccione su idioma," then look for "Buy Tickets" at the top of the page.)You can purchase there up to 62 days in advance, and ge fares as low as 12 euro pp o/way, compared to the regular 29 Euro. Since Spain is six hours ahead of Eastern time, you can actually book right after 6 pm the day BEFORE the 62 day period since it's already the next day in Spain! If you do purchase this way, you'll see a PDF file pop up that you can save, then print off as your tickets.

P.S....make sure you book your Alhambra tickets well in advance. Admission is strictly limited per-day (morning and afternoon sessions). You will also see a time printed on your ticket. You have a half-hour period from then to enter the jewel of the site, the Nazrid palaces. Book tickets at www.alhambra-tickets.es

I am leaving for Sevilla in March and have done almost everything online except buy bus tickets for Sevilla to Ronda. It is super easy to book the train online as said in a previous email. (I found the site to work better when I did everything in Spanish.) My base will be Sevilla and then go to different places over the weekends because I am visiting my daughter who is studying over there, so I have to work around her schedule. If you want to go to Alhambra book online as mentioned in previous email. You can choose three tours. Read info carefully. As far as hotels, I am booking hostels...my 19 year old wants to have that experience. Am just hoping my old bones will survive. It will be an adventure. Good luck, if I learn anything new I will send another reply.

Just a quick note on the Alhambra. The "time" on your ticket is the time that you arrive at the castle (not the ticket area) You have to account for a 10min walk through the gardens before you arrive at the place where they take your ticket. We arrive at the ticketing area 5min earlier than our tickets (somebody scanned it) walked trough the gardens slowly and to our surprise as we approached the main building there was somebody else there to scan our tickets. Well our tickets were for 9:45-10am and we arrived at the second entry at about 10:05 am and were denied entry. So we had to go back through the gardens and buy tickets for the 10-1030 entry. Just an FYI

Thanks all for the continued advice, especially the logistical info. I think after some research and advice we are thinking of dropping Cordoba and focusing on Seville and Granada, with perhaps a side trip to Toledo from Madrid at the beginning of our trip. Anyone have any good tales to tell about hotels or restaurants, especially unique/special occasion sort of places?

Toledo is def. a must see. The old town is beautiful and considered a 'living' museum. It was the highlight of our month in Spain last spring. The other highlight was the Alhambra at Granada, and yes they are very sticky about entrance times! Don't miss the old Jewish ghetto in Sevilla and take along Rick's explanation of the area walk.

If you're into walled cities, you cannot miss Avila as a day tour from Madrid. Toledo is great but it has become like Disneyland with all the tourists, while Avila is rather intact. Use European sites like isango.com or city-discovery.com to compare feasible day trips and tickets.