christine_nicole106

Hi everyone,

My FI and I are getting ready for our honeymoon in October!
We will be flying from TX to start our 13 night trip:

Malaga:
2 nights

Granada:
2 nights

Seville:
4 nights

Barcelona:
5 nights

Do you recommend a specific train to travel to these cities? Is a plane necessary for any of the travels?

Christina

It sounds like you haven't taken trains before. In each country, there is one national railroad. You don't have a choice which train to take, it will be the Spanish national railways (RENFE), if that's what you mean.

Seville and Barcelona are pretty far apart, I would consider flying. Otherwise, I think you would have to take the train from Seville back to Madrid and over to Barcelona. That isn't that bad with the new fast train system, though. I see one direct train run in the morning at 8:50 which takes about 5:35 total. That's not so bad and would be a new experience, you'd see a lot of countryside. It goes through Cordoba and Zaragoza. I see fares from 82 euro in second class on up.

Iberia and Ryanair have direct flights (I would probably avoid Ryanair, although they are probably cheap). Vueling has direct flights also, I'd check them out, the fare should be 50-100 euro. So it's up to you, what you prefer. At least Seville airport is small and not far out, and BCN isn't bad, either. But all told, with the time you have to get there in advance, you won't save that much time, actually, over the direct train.

How did you plan to get from Malaga to Granada and then to Seville? Granada is a bit out of the way, unfortunately, but you can do that by train. Or were you going to drive.

christine_nicole106

Well, as you guessed, we are newbies with European traveling! It will be our first Euro trip together.

Should we bus or train from Malaga to Granada? We do not plan to rent a car during our trip.

It sounds like we take a train from Granada to Seville

then

Look into flying from Seville to Barcelona

CathyM

Bus from Malaga to Granada, bus or train from Granada to Sevilla and I agree with the idea of flying between Sevilla and Barcelona (it will be much faster).

Overall your itinerary is moderately paced. You didn't fall into the easy trap that most new travelers fall into and try to do too much.

I'd do a daytrip (by train) from Sevilla to Cordoba. You may have time for 1-2 daytrips from Barcelona. My favorites are Girona and Tarragona and others love Montserrat.

christine_nicole106

ok thanks! and I'd like to ask for your help on some elementary questions, CathyM!

Do you have helpful websites for both bus/train reservations? I can look up Vueling or Iberia on my own.

kimhe

Five direct buses every weekday from Málaga to Granada in 1h 30 mins. Several other departures with stops and more travel time. http://www.alsa.es/en/

Low cost Vueling with some seven flights every day from Sevilla to Barcelona in 1h 30 mins. 30-60€ incl luggage up to 23 kg/person. http://www.vueling.com/en

Six buses from Granada to Sevilla every day in 3 hours. The train is some minutes slower.
Bus: http://www.alsa.es/en/
Train: http://www.renfe.com/EN/viajeros/index.html

WWanderer

Where are you flying in and out of?

christine_nicole106

We are flying into Madrid and out of Barcelona.

Do we book a train or bus from Madrid to Malaga?

christine_nicole106

Please disregard my above comment. I just re-read our itinerary and we will be taking a connecting flight from Madrid to Malaga.

Egbert

If you can fly seville to barcelona it's much easier and probably cheaper. If you have to take the AVE train it's more relaxing.