We have hit a dry patch in our planning, and time is drawing nigh.

Beginning tomorrow (yes, Dec 28) when we arrive from rainy Rome late afternoon we have booked:
— Seville 3N
— Cordoba 3N (really will be two full days as we wil probably arrive in late afternoon, 31 Dec)
— Ronda. 1N. (Yes, a bit odd but we had a day to fill before arriving in Grenada)
— Grenada 4N (3 full days as we will take an afternoon train from Ronda. Our Alhambra tickets are 11:00 on January 7, our last day in Granada ... and the first day we could get tickets!)

So this gets us set through the holiday period.

We will depart Grenada on January 8 and have 5 nights to fill before our flight from Seville to the UK at 1310 on 13 January. The only “must” on our list is Jerez, visiting at least one sherry bodega.

We will be traveling by train with the Tajeta Dorada. Or by bus. Each with an 8kg backpack and a 3kg shoulder daybag, so quite mobile.

We thought about 3N in Jerez (it will take much of an easy day to get there from Granada) and a final 2N in Seville, but are not excited by the prospect of additional time in Seville. We really prefer smaller towns.

Or we could do some lazy “seafood tourism” (not to be confused with “beach time”) for a couple of nights prior to a final 3N in Jerez (heading from Jerez to SVQ) ... but where? We don’t want to tackle yet another city — just be quietly lazy for a couple of days.

A day trip to Gib would perhaps be interesting, but from where?

Ideas? The good news is that because our five blank nights are after 6Jan we feel a bit less pressure to lock them down.

Cheers. EJZ

You might enjoy Cadiz or my personal favorite small town, Sanlucar de Barrameda (where the manzanilla bodegas are). I got there from Seville using public transport.

Hmmm. Would Cádiz merit a night or two — so perhaps 2N Cádiz, 3N Jerez with a day trip from Jerez to Sanlúcar?

I assume there should be no difficulty in catching a 1310 flight from SVQ if one spends the night before in Jerez, as the airport bus stops adjacent to the Seville train station.

We spent 4 nights in Cadiz last Christmas (between Malaga and Sevilla) and really enjoyed it. Lots of great food and history.

IDK about any of those places at night - I based myself in Sevilla and did day trips. They were all easy to get to. Personally, my favorite was Sanlucar, second Cadiz, third Jerez. This was all between 2004 and 2009 - sadly, I have not been back to Spain since then!! I did spend an overnight in Ronda, which was underwhelming. Cordoba was delightful (been there 3x).

Yes, our night in Ronda may be a waste in January —one adternoon and the next morning. But due to when we could get Alhambra tickets, we had a night to fill (Jan 3) between Cordoba and Granada.

We thought about Malaga but one night there would hardly be enough to get oriented. Other one-night suggestions for the gap between Cordoba and Granada would be very welcome.

We are liking the Cádiz / Sanlúcar / Jerez idea. We don’t care about night life per se, but do like good seafood.

There is a Saturday morning train from Jerez to Seville Santa Justa, arriving there 10;20 so should be no issues getting a 1310 flight from SVQ without having to overnight in Seville.

So a plan is developing: Cádiz and Sanlúcar for seafood and interesting towns, Sanlúcar and Jerez for sherry (and perhaps the latter for horses).

This sounds much more appealing than the coast between Malaga and Gib.

Thank you.

Gibraltar would be a long day trip from any of those places and for what's there most would not recommend - I rather enjoyed staying there for the night but many here diss the Rock as blah.

For lots of train info check www.seat61.com; www.budgeteuropetravel.com and www.ricksteves.com.

Cadiz is one of the oldest cities in Europe, not large, and quite nice.
In Jerez, we enjoyed the historic sherry bodega Tio Pepe, very nice tour with guide.

One night in Ronda will be fine. 3 in Jerez seems a bit much.

Three nights in Jerez, arriving in late afternoon (D1), would give us two days (D2, D3). We would take the 0850 train to Sevilla Santa Justa on D4, connect there to the SVQ airport bus for our 1420 departure.

With two days in Jerez, perhaps one day to look around / visit a bodega, and the other day take a trip to a nearby town such as Sanlucar?

About the same distance as Sanlucar in the other direction is Arcos de la Frontera - another day trip option

http://www.andalucia.com/image/photo...rcoschurch.jpg

Yes,we saw that last night and it looked intriguing.

So, departing Granada on the morning of Jan 8 and eventually catching a 1310 flight from SVQ on 13 Jan (so 5 nights to plan) we now have an embarrassment of rich choices.

Traveling light, and being n the home stretch, we might split our nights among three locales (2_1_2 or 1_2_2 or whatever) to avoid backtracking.

Thanks!

Jerez is at best a one-day affair IMO - sherry houses and Andalusian horse show - city itself is not much compared to other places here anyway.