I'm renting a car driving the following itinerary: Madrid to Cordoba, Cordoba to Granada, Granada to Seville, Seville to Madrid. Does anyone have an estimate on drive time between these cities? Also, the car rental company (Hertz) says there's a 2,500 KM max. Am I pushing it? I'd prefer to do the AVE to/from Madrid, but it's far cheaper to rent a car.

The roundtrip distance is less than 1500 Kms, so you're under the maximum set by Hertz for the rental, but it's a fair amount of driving if you're going to be on the road for less then 2 weeks.

You should be able to drive from Madrid to Córdoba in around 5 hours with no stops, but where's the fun in that. You should plan on stopping somewhere along the way for lunch. I'd suggest in the village of Almagro, which is about half way. You'll need a break after lunch, so you can plan on it being a long day on the road.

Córdoba to Granada should take you less then three hours and there are a number of places to stop along the way. Granada to Sevilla is another short drive of around three hours, but the drive from Sevilla to Madrid will take you at least 6-1/2 to 7 hours, depending on the weather, the time of year you're planning this trip and traffic conditions. Traffic can be pretty heavy driving into Madrid. And it's makes for a very long day on the road. It doesn't sound like a very nice way to end a holiday.

For this leg of your journey, you would be best off dropping the rental car in Sevilla when you arrive since there is no need for a car once you?re there, and taking the AVE back to Madrid, unless you plan on stopping somewhere along the way and enjoying the countryside of Extremadura. It's quite beautiful in this region and it would be a shame to miss any of it.

I'll second the recommendation to take the AVE back to Madrid. My wife and I drove from Madrid to Toledo to Granada to Ronda to Sevilla a few years ago, then dropped the car and trained back to Madrid. It really didn't seem like too much driving at all, and we only had a week.

Go to www.mappy.com and print out your mileage maps for each leg of your trip...you have a choice of espress, with tolls and non-toll....good to take with you...enjoy...

Flyfish, you'll pardon me, but if you spend all of your time in the car, when do you have the time to enjoy your holiday? Even if you only spend as little as three to four hours a day, every day, then it tends to be a waste of time. I guess if you're from a part of the country where the commute between work and home takes several hours our of your day, then spending a that much time in the car while on vacation may be acceptable, but I try to limit the amount of time we spend on the road to no more then three hours in a day and staying a minimum of two nights at each location. So when we go from Madrid to Sevilla, we either take the AVE or stop somewhere along the way so we can relax. The same holds true when we head north to Bilbao and San Sebastian-Donostia.

Chaque a son gout, my friend. We like to spend time getting lost on back country roads, stopping in villages that don't appear in guide books and finding quiet places to enjoy liesurely picnic lunches. One or the other of us usually speaks the language(s) of at least the major European countries, so we can interact with the locals a bit and get a better sense of the country than we can aquire in the major tourist areas. Yeah, I know that's a little weird, but we enjoy it. At the other extreme, we have friends who typically rent a villa and hate to even drive down to the local village for groceries. They probably think even your agenda is nuts, let alone ours. (Not that it matters, but as you mentioned it - I own the company and most of the time run it out of my home - total "commute" is about 20 feet.)

if you enjoy seeing as much as possible, the car gives you freedom no train can.

you have aranjuez.(summer roayl palace of past kings) nice river. then do not miss consuegra..several windmills flanking hilltop along with impressive castle, on your way south on the N4.

I have done this drive after picking my brother up at airport, madrid, early morning..and yes.. we were in and out of car all day, but they saw so much on that route, it really made a nice visual trip.
then you have carmona near sevilla which has a nice parador.

on your way back from granada to madrid you may want to go off the road towards ubeda and baeza for some very authentic, attractive architecture, castle, parador included.

be very aware of parking regulations, blue zone (limited time zones payable with ticket from dispensing machine necessary during certain hours). solid or dotted lines of any color on street next to curb means absolutely NO PARKING.
do not trust fact there is a space among other cars that it is actually legal. check it out.

i am surprised you cannot get unlimited mileage for two week rental. perhaps you can just rent the car for days to get to first major destination, where you do not really need car...then book another one for the rest of trip with dropoff in madrid.
they do not charge sometimes for dropoffs in other major spanish towns.