My wife and I are travelling to Spain for the first time at the end of June. Towards the end of our trip, we are planning on taking the morning AVE from Madrid to Granada. We have a reservation at the Parador Granada that evening, and we have reservations at the Parador Arcos de la Frontera the next night. We plan on renting a car for two days, dropping it off at the Sevilla Airport on our way back to Barcelona.

Here are my questions.

1. How much time should we devote to Alhambra? I'm assuming we have the afternoon and evening that we arrive to spend there. Is that enough, or will we want to spend part of the next morning there as well, before we leave?

2. Assuming that we leave in the morning, any suggestions on interesting drives between (or around) Granada and Arcos? Should we divert and head to Cadiz or Jerez for the afternoon before coming back to Arcos for the evening?

I'm open to suggestions. Though we do not speak Spanish, we're not intimidated drivers, so any ideas you have would be welcome.

Thanks!

Do you that you have to reserve your visit to the Alhambra by buying ahead of time the tickets.
The visit to the Palacios Reales is the one that will have a fixed timetable for its visit. The rest can be visited at you own pace. I would also recommend to rent one of those audio devices for guiding your visit. They are very good.
The time to be devoted to visit the Alhambra varies according to each person anyway it will take several hours. If you are staying at the Parador which is located inside the area of the Alhambra you might enjoy also a night visit, both a day visit and a night visit.
Are you including COrdoba, it is some kind of a must visit, it is a lovely place to visit and has the MEzquita which is worth a trip.
Near Seville there is a lovely little town called Carmona. this is very close to Seville, some 30 kms.
Good luck.

Sorry I meant to write DO you know that yoy havae....

hi pacman,

ditto what graziella says about booknig your tickets for the alhambra.

to try to explain the set up in advance is quite difficult. there are 2 types of tickets - day-time and night-time. the day-time ones are divided into morning and afternoon seesions; if you have a ticket for, say 10.30, you may enter the Alhambra site from opening time in the morning on wards, [?8.30am]. the time, as graziella says, refers to your "slot" for the Nasrid palace, which is just part of the site as a whole. you must present your ticket at the entrance to the nasrid palace within 30 minutes of the time on your ticket. otherwise, you may enter the rest of the buildings when you like, though some you may only enter once - a part of your ticket wil be removed to show you've done this.

to see everything at the site could take you 5 hours or more- the Generalife gardens and buildings alone took us about 2 hours. so far as I can tell, you could stay all day.

if you have a afternoon ticket, again you amy enter at any time during that session, and stay until the end of th esday, with the dame limitation on entering the nasrid palace. the only difference is that you can't enter in the morning, though again you can stay all day.

morning and afternoon tickets cost the same, though the morning ones would appear to be better value!

the night tickets are different - though the same price, the only building open is the nasrid palace, and access to the grounds is limited to the area required to get there - a few remains and the initial part of the gardens, not the main gardens in the generalife. again, you have a time marked on the ticket, which is your "slot" for entering the nasrid palace.

if you can get tickets for early on your 2nd day, I would suggest booking those as your day-time visit, allowing you to stay as long as you like before driving to Arcos when you have finished, and booking the night -time visit for the day you arrive. that way you will not be rushing to get there immediately you get to Granada, but can go and enjoy the town before your night visit.

please try to do both - the palaces at night are stunning and in June, the gardens should be lovely.

have a great trip,

regards, ann

The AVE to Granada? I think you are mistaken with the name.It is the Altaria.

You could buy your afternoon tickets ahead of time, and then perhaps the parador can provide you with ticket access if you decide to return in the morning. Most hotels can arrange for tickets quite easily, so you could play this one by ear.

Thanks for the great recommendations, and I'm sure I'm wrong about the train.

Anyone have thoughts about Arcos? Is it a place to dedicate a major portion of the day, or should we be wandering around that area?

hi pan,

I would be very wary about leaving getting tickets for the alhambra to the hotel and doing it at last minute, unless they can promise you that they can do this. When we went in NOVEMBER, all the day-time tickets had been sold in advance, and the night-time ones sold out very quickly.

as they are so relatively cheap, and you'll only go once in your life, probably, IMHO this is NOT something to leave to chance.

regards, ann

I should drive towards Ronda and make a stop there. Cadiz or Jerez may be too long. Arcos is a nice town to walk around the Parador and to church of San Pedro. Parking by the Parador may be an issue, though reachable I think they have no parking facility.

I like the Ronda idea. And after looking at a map, it appears that a more pleasant and logical diversion would be to drive from Granada to Malaga, then along the coast, until we reach Marbella, then turn up through Ronda.

Has anyone made that drive? Is the coastal drive an overcrowded, slow drive, or beautiful and scenic?

And coincidentally, when you put those options into Mapquest, it actually suggests that you head all the way to Gibraltar, and then up to Arcos. Is that worth the trip?

Thanks

Am I reading this correctly that you only have 4 nights in this area? 1 night in Granada, 1 in Arcos and 2 in Sevilla?

If so, the drive to Ronda is probably ambitious.

There are only 2 trains direct (Altaria) from Madrid to Granada each day. So, assuming you are arriving very early (the first train leaves at 9:30 from Atocha) you won't arrive to Granada until 1:42 pm. After checking into the hotel it will probably be at least 3pm. So you'll need to visit the Alhambra the same afternoon you arrive or the next morning. If you want to see another other parts of Granada that would be the next morning (or vice-versa saving the Alhambra for the next morning), then you'd have the afternoon to drive to Arcos. Unless you don't plan on really seeing Arcos and arrive late I don't see how you'd have time to stop anywhere. With only 2 days for Sevilla you wouldn't have alot of time to wander around Arcos the next morning.

Maybe I'm not reading this correctly. But if this is the case I hate to say this but I'd be tempted to spend 2 nights in Granada and 2 in Sevilla or 1 in Granada and 3 in Sevilla and skip the white villages - you wouldn't even need a rental car. There's must not enough time to cram all of this in such a limited time....my opinion, of course

It's actually less than that. We arrive at 1:45pm in Granada on a Monday. We have a room that night at the Parador. The next night we have a room at the Parador in Arcos de la Frontera, and then we have a flight on Wednesday from Sevilla to Barcelona at 7:45pm. So, there's only the drive from Granada to Arcos to contend with, and we're basically talking about one day.

Does that change your opinion?

Kathy did you already go to Spain this year?

2 nights to see Granada, Arcos & Sevilla!

Honestly, with only 2 nights in all of Andalucia I'd pick one city and base myself there. From what I think I understand you're going to be in Madrid, then have 2 nights (and 3 full days), and then a flight from Sevilla to Barcelona. If this is the case and it's locked in, I'd take the AVE straight to Sevilla and spend 2 nights there. A few ideas for daytrips (limit to 1 day) from Sevilla that would be easy with public transportation: Arcos, Cordoba, Jerez, Carmona, Cadiz. Granada is a possible daytrip from Sevilla but it's a LONG day. I'd probably save Granada for another time. Alternatively you could just spend both nights in Granada.

Just my 2 cents!

amsdon-I'm having serious Semana Santa withdrawals. Due to my work calendar this is the first time in 7 years I haven't made it to Sevilla (when it was originally supposed to be once in a lifetime). I just have to hang on a couple more weeks - I'll be in Sevilla for Feria this year (along with the May crosses in Granada and the Patio Festival in Cordoba). So, I'm excited about these new twists. Next spring Semana Santa falls in a week where I can return to Spain.

Best drive is Granada to Campillos, and then Teba, Cuevas del Becerro and Ronda. The coastal is faster, motorway all the time, but much more crowded and dangerous, occasional jams around Malaga; and less picturesque.
About Ronda to Arcos, take A-372 to Algodonales and Bornos. Enter Arcos on the second roundabout, there are signs to the Parador.

I've seen several people use the word "dangerous" when describing particular roads. Is the danger from the traffic, the drivers, or the quality (lack thereof) of the roads?

Here I mean dangerous the speed people goes. Roads may be winding but are okay, but people who are used to them travel too fast. The roads I rec. are much less frecuented, and speed limits are not above 90 kmh in any case.

That's good to know. Thanks for the tip!

CathyM I envy you big time. I know you & I live fairly close we should meet sometime. [email protected]