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Christmas in south Spain with little trips to Morocco

Christmas in south Spain with little trips to Morocco

Old Nov 7th, 2017, 01:41 PM
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Christmas in south Spain with little trips to Morocco

Dear people, we need help designing last minute itinerary. We are family of 4, Daughter is 20 and son is 13; we would love to go to Sevilla, Malaga, Córdoba and...( your suggestions here) in South Spain this coming December 2017 and would love to experience beautiful Christmas. We would love to see beautiful sights and try delicious food. It’s our first time in Spain and this area of the world.
Our 20 years old Daughter would love to see some exotic sights in Morocco as well since southern Spain is close enough to Morocco. Can anyone please suggest itinerary for 10 or 11 days please!
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Old Nov 7th, 2017, 02:52 PM
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I strongly recommend visiting Granada to see the Alhambra! It is beautiful and probably the most amazing place I have seen. I can't imagine going to Andalusia and not visiting the Alhambra. We spent 2 nights in Granada, which I think is a necessity so that you can spend a lot of time at the Alhambra and not race through it. We did a day tour, and a night time tour. Well worth it. Granada is also a lovely city.

I don't think 10 to 11 days is enough to visit both Andalusia and Morocco.
Btw, I have never been to Morocco.

This is what our itinerary looked like:

Córdoba - 2 nights
Granada - 2 nights
Malaga - 2 nights (BTW, we loved Malaga and think it is an underrated city)
Seville - 4 nights

Hope this helps.
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Old Nov 7th, 2017, 03:23 PM
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Thank you so much Karen for taking your time to write the reply to us! It’s very helpful! Can you recommend hotels in those cities please.
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Old Nov 7th, 2017, 11:14 PM
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It's a beautiful time of the year to be in Spain, but you do realize that not everything is open during the Christmas season, don't you? You'll need to carefully plan this excursion depending on your dates, especially if they correspond with Christmas Day or New Years.

You also need to understand that the days are short, limited sightseeing during the daylight hours, and if you what to visit the Alhambra, you'll need to secure tickets in advance.

And restaurant reservations are a must, especially during the holidays.

Making day trips to Morrocco with such a short itinerary will also be a challange. As you are planning on being in the South, you can either fly from Málaga to Tangier, Marrakech or Casablanca, or Sevilla to Marrakech, or take the ferry to Tangier from Tarifa or Algeciras. Or take a guided tour, some of which can consume more then one day.
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Old Nov 8th, 2017, 12:28 AM
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Short trips to Morocco is an unrealistic expectation. Either carve out a portion of your trip to spend in Morocco, or forget it. There is plenty to see in southern Spain on such a short trip, and to really get to anything "exotic" in Morocco would require about 3-4 days out of your allocated time, which leaves precious little time to appreciate all there is to see in Andalucia.
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Old Nov 8th, 2017, 02:47 AM
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You could take a day trip by ferry from Algeciras to Tangiers for a taste of Morocco, but as others have pointed out, most of the interesting places such as Fez and Marrakech are too far away for the time you have available.

Seville, Córdoba, Granada and Málaga could easily fill your 10 or 11 days, but if you are renting a car, you might want to stop in one of the towns in between such as Ronda and Arcos de la Frontera. If you are going to Tangiers, Tarifa would be a nice overnight stop as well.
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Old Nov 8th, 2017, 10:14 AM
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With only 10 or 11 days for your trip, you would be well advised to stick to Spain. KarenWoo's allocation of days for the various cities is a good one. While Morocco, where we lived for 5 yrs, seems quite close, in fact it would take a lot of time out of your trip to get there, see something, and get back, even if only to Tangier. Put Granada on your list and get your tickets to the Alhambra NOW.
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Old Nov 8th, 2017, 12:12 PM
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Cordoba - Las Casas de la Juderia de Cordoba

Granada - El Ladron D'Agua

Malaga - Soho Malaga

Seville - Apartamentos Suites Santa Cruz
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Old Nov 8th, 2017, 04:29 PM
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Saying morocco is close to Spain is like saying you want to go to Canada since you are in Miami.
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Old Nov 8th, 2017, 09:34 PM
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Pariswat, your reply is neither helpful nor kind. Reading comprehension is not your strongest side either. I specifically wrote that we will be traveling to South Spain, therefore we will be close to Morocco. As other people with more benovelent disposition pointed out- it’s possible to take a day trip via ferry to Tangier. I live close to Seattle in USA, and it takes us an hour to go to Vancouver in Canada, so your reply makes no sense, because it all depends of your concrete location!
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Old Nov 8th, 2017, 09:40 PM
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KarenWoo, heartfelt thank you for your hotel recommendations!Hopefully they still have some rooms available.
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Old Nov 8th, 2017, 09:51 PM
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Maribel, Bedar, Laverendrye, StCirq - thank you so much for such a voluble and informative advices! After reading them, we have realized that it’s logistically too difficult, and too short time wise. So we will stick to Spain and go back to Morocco during kids spring break. Thank you guys so much for taking your time to write your suggestions!
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Old Nov 9th, 2017, 04:53 AM
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Monimai,
You can click on my name to read my recent trip report to Andalucia. We were there this past September.

A few restaurant recommendations:

La Regadera in Cordoba
El Trillo in Granada
La Azotea in Seville - we ate here twice.

You will have a wonderful trip! This was our second visit to Spain (first time was Barcelona and Costa Brava). We love Spain! We also visited Madrid and Toledo in September, which you don't have time for, but can be another trip some day.
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Old Nov 9th, 2017, 06:58 AM
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We just returned from Spain, and spent five nights in Sevilla at this apartment:

https://sevilla.spain-select.com/en_...cio-san-jose-v

Highly recommend it. Great location, sparkling clean, excellent customer service and management.

Restaurants we liked were San Marco and El Pinton.

Best flamenco dance exhibition is at the Flamenco Dance Museum

http://www.museodelbaileflamenco.com
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Old Nov 9th, 2017, 07:59 AM
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Dear KarenWoo, you are amazing! Your helpful advices are priceless! And quite frankly thanks to you we should have a wonderful vacation in Andalusia. We will explore Barcelona, Madrid and other places in Spain during another trip.
I sincerely hope, when that time comes, you will share your travel wisdom with us again. Blessings
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Old Nov 9th, 2017, 08:04 AM
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Hi monimai

We were also in Andalusia this Sept and fell in love with the area. You will have an amazing time.

You can find our trip report here - it has our pictures, hotel recommendations and restaurants we enjoyed.

Hope this helps!

https://www.fodors.com/community/eur...-andalusia.cfm
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Old Nov 9th, 2017, 11:56 AM
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Hi monimai:

We live just north of Seattle and spent a month in southern Spain 2 years ago and are going back this spring so if you want to connect more in depth before your trip let me know. My email is on my profile. And we drove from France stopping in:

Córdoba
Granada
Nerja but visited Malaga in a day trip and agree it is underated
Seville


So if you will be driving, I am happy to give you an idea about roads, driving times, etc. I totally agree with your present plan to hold Morocco for a later trip and focus on southern Spain.

A couple of things I wanted to mention. I don't know if you know that Norwegian airlines just started a terrific new flight direct from Seattle to Gatwick and also has a connection into Madrid! We flew them last year back from London to Boston for the first time, and loved their service and, but most of all flying on their brand new Boeing 787 dreamliner! It was great. The new Seattle to London flight leaves Seattle at 12:55PM arrives in Madrid at 1:50pm the following day. The flight stops in London Gatwick and you do a have a bit of a layover but not to bad-something like 3 hours I think . I mention this only because Norwegian is new to Seattle since September so you may not know about them yet. Also note that we saved about $300 on tickets for 2 people by buying our tickets on the UK Norwegian site instead of the US site by taking advantage of the currency difference in their ticket pricing. We are going to be taking that flight in April and picking up a car in Madrid and driving to Portugal then back to France from there.

Also, if you want an alternative to an apartment in Seville we stayed with my sister (3 adults)at the Eurostar Regina in Seville. They have this amazing family room that is on 2 levels, with a full room downstairs with either twin beds or 2 doubles (can't remember) and then then through connecting stairs a beautiful room with a king bed a terrace. We got it because it was cheaper than 2 rooms-so it might work for you. Also they have a pay garage which was great since we were driving and that is often hard to find in the old town section of Seville.

It has the added advantage of being able to walk to our favorite tapas restaurant, La Eslava. They also rent apartment on top of their restaurant, but you have to park off site and they have a strict cancellation policy, so that is the only reason we didn't stay there:

http://www.espacioeslava.com/en/apartamentos_en_Sevilla

Here is the restaurant website:

http://www.espacioeslava.com/en/rest...e/bar-de-tapas

If the beach interests you, we stayed in Nerja which is a great little town! Easy to walk in lots a great restaurants. If that interests you I can probably dig up the apartment listing we stayed in-it was very reasonable and nice.

Just a comment-I think your kids might especially love Granada and Seville-potentially over Cordoba. They seemed younger and more lively to us than Cordoba, but of course that really depends on what you and your kids like
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Old Nov 9th, 2017, 12:17 PM
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Trains are great for all those cities and buses too - don't want car if spending time in places like Seville, Cordoba, Granada - take train to Algeciras for fast boats to Morocco or of course fly from Seville or other airport. Booking trains in advance can bring nice discounts - www.renfe.com - Spanish railways official site can save money but is hard for many to get to work - check www.seat61.com for help on that and general info on trains www.ricksteves.com and www.budgeteuropetravel.com.
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Old Nov 9th, 2017, 01:23 PM
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Skip Cordoba in favor of Granada. If you go to Morocco, try to not just do Tangier and Marrakech; they're both pretty seedy for a family trip (especially Tangier) and may leave you with the wrong impression of a wonderful country.

Good luck!
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Old Nov 9th, 2017, 01:31 PM
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Skip Cordoba in favor of Granada.>

Curious as to why? I'd say the contary if judging by cities and not just one blockbuster sight and Cordoba's former mosque turned Christian cathedral is also in that category. I'd skip Malaga too in winter and maybe fly to Morocco for 3-4 days.

I'd also suggest flying into or out of Madrid and spending a few days there - daytrip to nearby Toledo could be the absolute highlight of all. Fly home from Seville or Malaga.

I'd propose
Madrid 3 days
Seville 4 days
Cordoba day trip from Seville'
Jerez de la Frontera day trip from Seville - take Serry tours (Sherry being a Brfitish corruption of Jerez when Brits dominated the trade- also Andlusian Equestrian School has rehearsals many days in local training school.)
Granada 2 days
Malaga last days and fly home from there.

High-speed trains Madrid-Seville in about 2 hours.
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