dfaye

We have 2 weeks in Spain the 1st 2 weeks of October. starting in Madrid. We are not museum and art people, though very interested in the Jewish history, the architecture, the mosques, etc....we prefer wandering, quaint villages, not typical tourist stuff

Madrid 2 days

Toledo 1 day

Cordoba 2 days?

Then go to Seville 3 days and drive from there through Ronda, Jerez de la Fronterra etc and make our way to Granada for 2 days and then back to Madrid

OR

Drive Cordoba to Granada and on the way do Jaen, Baeza, Ubeda etc and then go straight Granada to Seville for 3 days and take

Train Seville to Madrid last day to fly out

Since it seems too much to do all of these smaller villages, which set is better....the ones around Seville or the ones between Cordoba and Granada.

CathyM

How many nights in total doyou have for your trip?

Robert2533

Depending on where you are arriving from, 2 days in Madrid would be sadly shortchanging one of Spain's most dynamic cities, even if you are not into museums and art (but what else is there in life?).

Toledo you can do by train from Madrid on a day-trip.

You'll need to plan carefully, especially if you are considering driving. You will have no need for a car in Sevilla or Granada, where one can be a costly burden.

kja

I 'm not sure I understand your options, but your 2nd one doesn't make much sense to me.

I think we'll need to know more about your interests to know whether your 1st plan makes sense

pgriffin

With respect, this seems like too much moving around in 2 weeks. Focus in on one province that you would like to see and then focus in on one part of that in a 2 week timeframe IMO.

isabel

It's a little tight but I think you can do most of it in two weeks. If you have most of two days you can get a taste of Madrid if you don't want to do any museums (although Madrid's art museums are among the best). I would then take an early train to Toledo and spend the day and night - it's beautiful at night and you should see it after the day trippers have gone in the evening. Then the next day take an early train to Seville (you might have to go back through Madrid to get the fast train but the train from Toledo to Madrid is only a half hour). You could do Cordoba either as a stop over on the way to Seville, or as a day trip from Seville. I had two nights there and liked it a lot but had more time than you do.

I would rent the car just from when you leave Seville till you get to Granada - you don't want it in those cities or in Toldeo or Madrid. But in order to see some of the beautiful countryside and small towns I think it would be hard to do without a car. Rhonda is magical. I was fortunate enough to have someone drive me around that area so I got to see the small towns but not have to worry about where to park the car in Rhonda. Also he knew all the secret back roads, etc, but even without a local you would see some fabulous scenery and lots of quaint villages. So while you can get to Rhonda by public transportation you'd miss some of other smaller towns if you don't have a car.

Here are my trip reports (I covered the towns you are thinking of on three different trips) - http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...tral-spain.cfm
http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...p-report-1.cfm
http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...-gibraltar.cfm

Lexma90

Keep in mind that basically all of the places that you mentioned are on the tourist route, rightfully so, and that only a few of them are quaint villages.

We had a wonderful visit to Spain last year, but due to time constrictions, only were able to visit Madrid, Toledo, Granada, Cordoba and Sevilla. We loved Madrid far more than we thought we would. In addition to the fantastic museums (one of our primary reasons for planning the trip), it's a great town for cafes, people-watching and eating tapas. Toledo is worth a night, if you can arrange it.

If you're interested in mosques and the like, then definitely plan on two nights in Cordoba. In addition to the amazing Mesquita, it was the long-time capital of Moslem Spain.

I would say, without know much about the smaller towns and their locations, to plan your itinerary so you have a rental car for those areas and to get to/from Granada, and to try to do the rest by train. Granada is not so easy to get to by public transportation as the other locations, but also difficult to drive/park in. What worked for us was to fly into Madrid, pick up a rental car and drive to Toledo for one night. From there, we drove to Granada. We easily parked on the edge of the old city, only a couple of blocks from the highway, in a public parking garage. We walked to our hotel from there. We drove from there to Cordoba, where we dropped our rental car. The rest of the journey, on to Sevilla (VERY fun city), then to Madrid to end the trip, we did by train.