donnaannie

We (5 women - me and my sister and 3 girls between 18 and 21) are planning a trip to Andalusia in June 2012. We'd like to rent a house/apartment in a smaller town that has access to shops, restaurants and bars. We'd like a place where the 3 girls can go out at night to a club, that is relatively safe and that has lots of charm. We will have a rental car - however, we'd like to stay somewhere where we can walk to the above mentioned. Any suggestions?

kimhe

Take a look at Torre del Mar, mile long beaches and lots of beach-front night clubs, discos and bars. Very popular with Spanish tourists in summer. Fabulous seafood. http://www.absoluteaxarquia.com/areas/torredelmar.html

Torre del Mar from the air: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQgnwHPQOjQ

Very close to much larger Málaga city itself with great tapas bars, cafés, nightlife, sights and shopping.

But you should also consider going to Sevilla, the undisputable queen of the Andalusian cities. Even if it's not a small town, you get the small town feel, tons of charm and unbeatable nightlife. I recommend the non-touristy areas around Alameda de Hércules and the Triana district. In Triana, one of the most important cradles of flamenco culture, people normally start the evening along riverside Calle Betis and then move on to some of the clubs.
http://www.sevilla5.com/activities/goingout/betis.html

In Alemeda de Hercules thousands of people will be on the street and in all the bars till 4 am (at least in the week-ends). http://www.sevilla5.com/activities/g...-hercules.html

Also lots of small towns just around Sevilla.

CathyM

I'd second the recommendation of Sevilla. Although it's not a small town the center is compact and outside of the Santa Cruz quarter many parts don't feel very touristy.

How long is your trip? You may want to consider a couple of bases depending on the length of your stay.

Egbert

Sevilla

Egbert

Or Sanlucar if you want a small town.

donnaannie

Thanks to all. Trip is scheduled for 9 days. Sevilla was our first thought, but then we got thinking about smaller towns - like Gaucin or Arcos de la Frontera. However, our thoughts keep going back to Sevilla. Would anyone be able to recommend a good apartment (we all like nice and are pretty fussy) or a good small hotel that we can maybe get a couple suites. I'll keep looking, but I'm getting very overwhelmed...

CathyM

Is this your first trip to Andalucia? If so and you have 9 days then I'd consider 2 base cities.

Sevilla is an excellent choice for many daytrips (Cordoba, Cadiz, Sanlucar, Jerez, Camona, Osuna, Ecija, etc....) - all can be done very easily with public transportation. I wouldn't want to miss Granada if this is your first trip to Spain. But at 3 hours each way is too long for a day trip,at least for me. You may want to spend 3-4 days in another base city which is closer to Granada. Malaga or Nerja would probably be at the top of my list. Or spend the time in Granada itself (although I'd probably only spend 2-3 days in Granada itself if you were just going to be visiting Granada).

Another alternative would be to spend 4-5 days in Sevilla, 2 in Granada and in between rent a car and spend a couple of days/nights exploring the white villages. But I didn't throw this idea out initially as you indicated you wanted one place in which to base yourself and this would be 3 potential overnight cities.

Egbert

Hotel Amadeus, Casa de la Juderia are some nice hotels in Seville.

CathyM

You may also want to consider renting an apartment in Sevilla. I just reserved a rental for the first time with sevilla5.com for my trip in March 2012. I did alot of research on which company to use and this one was well recommended on several forums. They were very professional and organized during the process of making the reservation. The man who is responsible for the Explore Sevilla website (a great source of information on Sevilla) works for this company also.

http://exploreseville.com/index.htm