May itinerary updated

Posted by Stacie (Cincinnati, Ohio, USA) on 04/06/10 06:05 PM

Thank you for all of the excellent suggestions. We have decided to slow our travel a bit. Here are our latest thoughts:

5 nights Madrid with side trips to Toledo and ElEscorial

5 nights Seville- Can we realistically day trip to Cordoba, Arcos, & Ronda or is this too much?

2 nights in Granada

We decided to cut out Barcelona and do that on our next trip. We like the idea of staying in fewer places, but would still like to see as much as we can with out overdoing it. Is it best to rent a car once we reach Seville or is it better to rely on public transportation? We drove through Tuscany and liked the flexibililty of a car. Your input please!! Also I would love any suggestions for moderate accomodations in these cities. We must get booked this week!

Posted by Angela

Chicago/Rural WI

04/08/10 11:40 AM

811 posts

As no one has responded yet, I thought I'd bump the post and offer a suggestion for consideration.

The 5 nights in Madrid seems about right, including the day trips. Five nights in Seville would be fine with the day trips you'd like to do, but I'd like to suggest a possible alternate plan:

Spend 3-4 nights in Seville, doing a day trip to Cordoba from there (or, alternately, you could conceivably stop in Cordoba on your way between Madrid and Seville).

On your last morning in Seville, pick up a rental car and use it to explore the White Hill Towns, spending a night or two in one of them (Ronda could be a possibility). This would give you flexibility of touring this part of Andalucia by car, something we did and thoroughly enjoyed.

After the White Hill Towns, keep on driving to Granada, dump the car, and spend the last 2 nights there.

We did a similar itinerary in reverse order and, upon reflection, the only thing we'd change is giving ourselves more time in the WHT (we only spent one night, which gave us the bulk of 2 days for which to explore. It was so gorgeous we wanted more time!).

Either way, hope you have a great trip to Spain!

Posted by Ashley

Cincinnati, OH, U.S.

04/08/10 02:44 PM

34 posts

Hi Stacie-
I found driving in Seville to be a nightmare so I would suggest spending one less night in Seville, still doing a day trip to Cordoba (it's only about an hour on the high speed train.) You should consider picking up a rental car in Seville and heading to the hill towns and staying one night there in either Arcos (we stayed at Casa Blues there and loved it) Ronda, or Olvera, which was so charming. We stayed at Casa Morroc in Olvera. We didn't stay in Ronda, but someone recommended the Hotel Husa Reina Victoria in Ronda. They have free parking!

That way instead of leaving Seville for a day to hit the hill towns and then backtracking, you can make your way to Granada without having to worry about parking the car in Seville. Once in Granada you can return the car. Granada is easy to get around on foot, by public transport, or taxi.

We stayed at Hotel Hesperia in Granada. I think it was 75 euro per night and very lovely. In Madrid, we rented an apartment for 4 nights which was great and allowed us to save money on food. It was super close to the main train station and the Sofia musuem. It was 85 euro per night when we were there. Here is a link: http://www.vrbo.com/200670

Good luck! I completely fell in love with Spain while I was there.

Enjoy!

Posted by vftravels

S.F. Bay Area, CA, United States

04/08/10 11:02 PM

1878 posts

You are doing well to reduce the number of stops. I am struggling with the same thing in planning a future trip to France. It's so hard but it's the right thing to pare back.

We picked up a rental car in Seville back in 2005 -- I agree with the person who said that Seville driving is a challenge (and I have driven in eight or nine countries in Europe). It's o.k. to pick up a car there, I just would not recommend driving in and out for several days. So maybe cut back to three days in Seville, and add two nights in Ronda. (Or Arcos, never been there myself).

I strongly urge you to consider the Plaza Santa area in Madrid as a base. It's lively but not too much so, where the Calle Atocha gets narrow and not so highly trafficked, walking distance to the Prado and Plaza Mayor as well as Puerta del Sol. You can actually stop in Cordoba on the way to Madrid, though that could be expensive in terms of buying separate train tickets. Double check this but we were able to check bags at the train station for a couple of hours in 2005 to enable us to see the Mesquita.

The action in Andalusia is actually in the cities and towns, not so much in the country. Not like Italy where the countryside is so beautiful. Although I can understand if you want to go to several smaller towns in a short period of time, in that case a car is essential. If you have your heart set on multiple small towns go for it, otherwise you will do fine with the train between Seville and Ronda, Ronda and Granada for example. If I had to do it over again on our 2005 trip I would probably stick to the train, but we had out heart set on a return day trip to Gibraltar having visited there on our honeymoon.