wvmom

I have bought my plane tickets to Spain for November, and now I'm trying to plan my itinerary. I'm flying in and out of Madrid, but I don't plan to spend much time there. Here's my tentative plan so far:

Day 1-2 Fly to Madrid, spend afternoon and night in Madrid recovering.
Day 3 - AVE to Sevilla
Day 4,5, - Sevilla
Day 6 - Rent a car in Sevilla, drive to Ronda via Arcos, Zahara
Day 7 - Ronda, Cueva de Pileta, Grazamala
Day 8 - Ronda? Nerja?
Day 9 - Drive to Granada, drop off car.
Day 10 - Granada
Day 11 - Bus to Cordoba
Day 12 - AVE to Madrid
Day 13 - Fly home

My biggest question is how much time should I allow for the area around Ronda. I want to have time to see Cueva de Pileta and check out the White Villages, but should I just stay 2 nights and spend the next night in Nerja? Or spend all 3 nights there and just drive through to Granada?

Any comments?

wvmom

Anyone?

Marija

I wouldn't bother going to Nerja for one day. What we enjoyed about it were the beaches, but I don't think November will still be beach weather. I would add the day to Sevilla since IMHO two days is enough for Ronda and surroundings. Cueva di Pileta is a fairly quick trip. Make sure there will be someone there to let you in. Cordoba is an easy daytrip from Seville so you can consider an alternate route to getting back to Madrid, if you so desire.

wvmom

Thanks for the reply, Marija. I'm planning to drive up the coast between Ronda and Granada, but I wasn't sure if it was worth overnighting in Nerja.

How much time should I allow for Arcos and the other Pueblos Bancos?

Marija

Well, if you're driving the coast anyway that changes the situation. In that case you may want to break up the trip in Nerja. Arcos has pretty views but the driving in the old city was the most horrendous of the whole trip. I didn't think our car would fit through the narrow streets, even with the mirrors completely in. We spent one night in Arcos and two nights in Ronda and that was more than enough of the white towns for us. In retrospect I would have skipped the night in Arcos and just gone straight to Seville from Ronda.

Kristina

Hi-

I did almost this same trip, albeit backwards from your plan last November.

We drove through Nerja, planning to stop for a while, but just kept on driving. It was packed with tourists, we couldn't find a parking space and it seemed to lack the charm the guidebooks mentioned.
Grazelema was darling on the other hand, and worth a stop.
Ronda would be a nice place for 2 nights, but keep in mind if you will use that as a base to visit you'll be doing a lot of driving on small, winding roads.

If you'd like to see my trip, it's on my website:
http://www.wired2theworld.com/spain2005.html
Or, you can read my trip report here on Fodor's by clicking on my name and looking for the "travel tyrant" report.