We spent 10 days traveling from Seville to Granada to Cordoba and then to Madrid. We used Rick's guide to those cities and it worked very well.
Most of the hotels we stayed in were excellent: Hotel Amadeus in Seville, Hotel Casa 1800 in Granada and Balcon de Cordoba were all outstanding.
We traveled most places by train. We bought a Eurail pass but discovered that you CANNOT reserve seats for Spanish journeys in the Eurail website, which you must do. We returned our Eurail pass and booked seats directly through the Renfe site and had no problems.
In Seville, the cathedral has changed its entry process since Rick's guide was written: if you buy tickets in advance (highly recommended), you now have to line up next to the tower, not at the gate by the palace.