Hello, all. I will be spending five days in Seville during the middle of March. What would you recommend for any day trips/overnight trips that are easily reachable by train or bus (we are not renting a car)? We were considering Ronda, but would we be too limited by public transportation? Or, with only five days to spend, should we stay in Seville the whole time? Thank you!

Have you been to Granada? If not, I would do that as a daytrip (or better, stay over one night) by bus to see the Alhambra. It is spectacular and worth the trip of several hours each way. That woould leave you enough time -- 3.5 or 4 days -- to see the highlights of Seville.

I was in Seville for about a week in March two years ago and did two day trips. Seville isn't that large that I think you need to spend five days seeing it. I think you can find stuff to do for five days in Seville if you really want, but might enjoy a day trip.

My favorite was Cordoba and seeing the alcazar. That is a lovely town, also, and it's an easy suburban train ride from Seville. I also took the bus to/from Jerez for a day. That didn't work out so well but only because the weather was dreadful -- it rained buckets for hours and hours that day. So, I couldn't be strolling around Jerez and there were no available cabs at the bus station. I had only wanted to do a few things, one seeing a horse show, but I missed it. It would have been okay probably if it weren't raining so much. ALso, I thought there would be a tourist booth or something in the bus station and there was not, so I didn't have a good map of the city, although I think getting to that horse show would have been too long a walk in pouring rain.

There are a lot of good local bus routes leaving from the main bus station in Seville.

It rained a lot the week I was there, I don't know if that's normal for March or not.

you can do a search on here for "sevilla" or day trips from sevilla, or many combinations and get so many posts you will have your fill of info for the evening!!

we were there last year for a fun three days.

i have included my post in case there are any ideas that can help you.

http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...nova&fid=2

I'm sure you can find lots of info on Cordoba, and there are various tourist info websites on Jerez. However, the special horse show is by the Royal Andulusian Equestrian School, and this is their website. They don't have shows every day, and I think only at one time, so you do have to plan.

http://www.realescuela.org/ing/home.htm

The bus station is at Plaza de San Sebastian, not too far from the Alcazar and Santa Cruz barrio.

The Equestrian Academy show is on Thursdays at noon, and is worth the effort to go see it. Taxis leave from the Train station (next door to the bus station). Another good day trip is taking the Andalucia Express to the end of the line, down to Cadiz. Excellent city right by the ocean and a much different feel to Seville.

Seville can be seen in 2-3 days, so you should definitely plan to see other spots. Ronda would be great, but requires renting a car. Skip Gibralter, as it's very touristy and a waste of time (you can probably see all of the monkeys you want to see at a local zoo). Carmona is a village just east of Seville which is nice. But, best of all, consider taking the AVE (fast) train to Madrid, as it takes just over two hours...see Madrid for for one long day, or stay overnight. Again, Seville is beautiful and a wonderful city but after five days in Seville you'll be done and ready to move on; in my opinion, that's a bit too long.