Hi all, I will be travelling to Spain doing a whirl-wind tour. I will be staying in Granada for 2 nights and will then travel to Sevilla. Rather than going directly to Sevilla, I was hoping to make a stop or two along the way to see some of the smller towns such as Ronda, Grazalema or Zahara?
Anyway, after some preliminary searches for bus companies that make stops in these towns I have not found any information. Are there any bus routes to these places? I also thought of renting a car for the day, but I always get error messages when I enter a pickup and return for the same date. Am I better off waiting until I get there and then rent a car? If I do rent a car, will I spend half the day looking for parking? Thanks for any help you can provide.

tskobo,

If you speak some spanish, you can check most of the bus schedules on:

www.movelia.es

However, I would definitely recommend driving. Perhaps the error messages were due to you not entering the correct pickup and return TIMES (i.e. pickup before return), or perhaps you were trying through a broker that requires a minimum rental period.

Here are the websites of the majors:

www.alamo.com (uses Atesa)
www.atesa.com
www.avis.com
www.europcar.com
www.hertz.com
www.national.com (uses Atesa)

Hope this helps,
Andre

Try entering the dropoff date as the next day at the same time, minimum rental is always 24 hours. For a daytrip, I recomend the car, more flexibility. With the bus in smaller towns where it's hard to find english speakers and even harder to find your way to where the bus stops, you might end up being stuck for the night in a small town without planning to.

Much easier to see those three towns you mentioned from Sevilla.. Granada doesn't run direct buses to Ronda for example (have to go thru Malaga).

Don't write off the Spanish bus system. It is really very good. The busses are clean and comfortable. If they have a route going where you are going, [Grenada - Cordoba for ex] it is a very comfortable, cheap, way to go. Grazalema, Zahara de las Sierras are really quite small. I have no doubt that you can get there by bus, but there may be only one bus a day. For these places as well as El Bosque, Denoajan, etc, a car is more proactical.

Thanks everyone! I know that the country has a great bus system, but it seems like I should rent a car for the day in order to catch a town or two on my way to Sevilla...not a problem, although it's been a while since I used a manual transmission...yikes! Guess that will add to the adventure of it all. Here's hoping I don't roll off a cliff or something trying to get it into first gear!!

Thanks again!