I suggest you insert Ubeda and Baeza:
July 19 - Granada
July 20 - Ubeda & Baeza
July 21 - Cordoba
Info:
http://geneura.ugr.es/ubeda.html

thank you so much for your suggestions, Revulgo. I checked out the webpages you posted for me and the places you recommend look really interesting.

It seems like you know this region in Spain rather well, so I have another question for you. We have 1 evening and 1 full day (2 nights) in Granada - is this enough time? Should we spend 2 full days in Granada? Is it worth it to do 1 day in Granada and then head to Ubeda and Baeza for the day?

THANK YOU!!

I think two nights in Granada is enough.

Do you think we should go to Ubeda and Baeza as opposed to spending some time in Rhonda?

Do you know how far the drive is from each of these places? ie how long will it take to drive from Malaga to Granada? and then to Cordoba? and then to Sevilla? Is there a webpage that will help me with this type of information? I haven't been able to really find anything on this.

thanks.

Okay. After 1 freak out, a few days to think about the trip and 1 argument with the boyfriend, I have decided yet again to revise my Spain itinerary. Most of it is staying the same, but the middle (Andalusia) section has been rearranged again. Thank you for all your help in the past, and thank you for your patience with all my changes. Please - comment on this recent update:

3 and a half days in Barcelona

fly from Barcelona to Jerez de la Frontera - arrive at 4pm - spend the night in Jerez

day in Jerez - see horse show (it's a tuesday) and try some sherry -- drive to Ronda via white villages - night in Ronda

Spend day exploring Ronda - drive to Granada in late afternoon -- arrive in Granada - see Alhambra at night

spend day in Granada
(AnnHig - booked "Hotel Guadalupe" on your recommendation)

leave Granada early in the morning and drive to Cordoba - spend the day in Cordoba - drive to Seville

Day and night in Seville

Day and night in Seville

leave for Lagos, Portugal

Questions:
1) We are planning on renting a car, but it's getting kind of expensive - Would this route be do-able without renting a car?

2) We have taken out Malaga in favour of spending time in the "white villages" - are we missing anything major?

3) Is a day trip to Cordoba enough? Or do you recommend spending the night there and then leaving in the morning to go to Seville?

Any other suggestions would be more than appreciated! As you can tell, I'm sort of lost on this one! THANK YOU FOR YOUR HELP!

hi, rsn,

love the new itinerary, and hope that you won't be disappointed in the hotel guadelupe!

IMO you will enjoy this particular trip far more with a car - with A/C at that time of year of course - as you will not be tied to train time-tables. Car hire is quite cheap in spain, and as there are just two of you, it should be OK to get a smallish car.

Malaga was nicer than we expected but it's expendable.

regards, ann

Ann,

Thank you so much for your help and constant encouragement that I am making the right decisions!

We are planning on renting a car - the only problem is that neither myself or my partner drive standard. we were going to learn before the trip, but I have been told by a few people that the drive in the Jerez/Ronda area is especially hilly and treacherous. Now I am nervous about stalling on such narrow roads! We have been looking into getting an automatic car, but they are SO SO expensive.

I have a feeling that we will end up sucking up the cost and renting a car, b/c that would be the best and only way to see all the smaller villages along the route - but I just wanted to know if it would be possible without a car. Just in case...

I didn't visit all of the places you are planning to see, but I did visit Ronda, Granada, Cordoba, and Sevilla without a car. I did a lot of research on train and bus schedules ahead of time, and found a routing that worked really well for me.

As for how long to spend in Cordoba, it depends on what you want to see and do there and in Sevilla! I found plenty to keep me busy in Cordoba for 1.5 days, but I also had more than 2 days in Sevilla. You might want to check exactly what days are involved, as many things are closed on Sunday afternoons and/or all day on Monday.

Hope that helps!

rsn
Just returned from Spain and Portugal and the roads in Jerez/Ronda area are great. Many new highways and toll ways have been built in the last few years. I would suggest you become pretty good at shifting or rent a automatic. The streets many of the ciites and town are pretty narrow. If your worried about shifting and driving through them it could be a problem. My wife couldn't believe be had two rear view mirrors after two weeks. Lagos is a perfect town to stay in the south of Portugal. The Hotel Marina Rio was 65 euro including breakfast for a double. 4 star. The Sept rate is the same.

hi, rsn,

glad I've been able to help.

AS you are not going til July, could you get a bit of stick-shift practice in? A few lessons should do it, IMo. I'd rather spend the extra on A/C, if it's choice between the two.

anyway, you are both young and should have little difficulty adapting- after all, us Brits do it all the time, as do most other europeans.

what's a holiday without a bit of adventure?

best wishes, ann

I think that we are going to stick with a day trip to Cordoba en route from Granada to Seville. We are moving around a lot and switching hotels almost every night, so it might be nice to get to Seville where we will stay for 3 nights. Also, from what I have been hearing, Seville is AMAZING! and I would rather get there the evening before, ditch the rental car and wake up fresh, and ready to go!

Also, we have decided to rent the car - and an automatic - we ended up finding an amazing price on a discount rental website. Although we technically have time to learn stick, we would have to rent a car here for a few days and get someone to teach us - I'm not convinced that it would be worth it in the end!

Although I am totally up for adventure (on past europe trips have gone canyoning in the mountains in Switzerland and sky diving in Prague) I'm not so up for rolling off a cliff!

Thanks for all of your input and suggestions - keep them coming!!

hi, rsn,

well done for biting the bullet about the car. Sometimes any decision is better than none! and when you come back another time, having tried it once, perhaps you won't be so worried about the stick-shift.

keep the qs coming!

regards, ann

Hi all!!

I know I have been away from Fodors for the past few months, but now that the trip is fast approaching, I am back to my old planning self. Plus I have a good excuse for being MIA and I thought I would share my good news - I was writing finals and I just graduated from law school!!! Yay!

Now that (most of) my school stress is over, I am back to finalizing trip details!

Question - I am going to book my ALhambra tickets and I was wondering if I should book a "regular guided tour" or whether I can do it on my own. I will have a guide book with me that has descriptions of the part of the Alhambra and I'm wondering if this is enough?

Also, can anyone recommend a nice hotel in Jerez that's not too expensive (max 90 euros or so)?

Thank you!!

hi, rsn,

congrats on the graduation - i hope that your career turns out to be all you hope and more.

turning to more fun matters, IMO a self-guided tour of the alhambra, especially with a good guide book, will be fine.

try to get hold of Robert irwin's book "the alhambra" [pub, profile books in the UK]for fits fascinating history. and do make time to go in the evening as well as the day - it's quite a different experience.

regards, ann

We are going to the Alhambra in September, and a lot of people have recommended that we get the audio guide. But you should get there early, because they're usually all gone/being used by the afternoon.

Hey, congrats on law school. Click on my name and read our Andalucia trip report from a month ago. It was wonderful! You are going to have a great time.

kelliebellie - thanks for your trip report! It has so much great info for planning our days and what we want to see. I always get a little ambitious about what is possible to see in a day. For this trip, I am going to try to relax a little bit!

mikeycora - thanks for your recommendation - I finally booked the Marina Rio hotel in Lagos. It was a bit more expensive in July, but compared to the other hotels we looked into on the beach, it was still (somewhat of) a bargain at 100 Euros.

Am booking tickets for the ALhambra and we decided to use a guide book or get an audio guide as opposed to a formal tour. Thanks for the input!

We are still debating about whether to stay in Jerez or in Arcos for a night. We will be flying into Jerez at about 4pm but we found a beautiful hotel in Arcos that is more reasonable than the hotels in Jerez. We were thinking of making the drive that evening because we were told it's only 30 minutes.

Has anyone done the drive from Jerez to Arcos? is it really 30 minutes only? Is it worth it to travel the extra distance by car, or should we suck it up and pay a little bit more to stay in Jerez?

thank you!!

Update: booked the parador in Arcos for the night! We used the "young person discount" and got a great rate.

I hope it isn't too far from Jerez so that I can get back to do the tour of the sherry bodega...

Personally, I would cut Madrid to less days ....maybe 2, and spend it in Toledo or some other city (ie. Salamanca) or a city on your way to Pamplona. Madrid it's a beautiful, and "busy" city, and you might find it a bit overwhelmed, and definitely HOT in July. My wife and I did Pamplona a few years back, and just like you we were only able to a room for one night, and the 2nd night, we were up all night partying from bar to bar, and staying up to wait for the run at 7am (I believe).

Here are a few reasonably priced hotels that we've stayed before:
In Barcelona - http://www.hotelprincipal.es/index_en.html
In Sevilla - http://www.hotel-sevilla.com/princip_ing.htm
In Lisbon - http://cb2web.com/geres/

by the way, you might be dissapointed with the Jerez Tour in Jerez. We also did that and found it a waiste of time... I would've rather spend more time in Cadiz which is about 1 hour south of Jerez...