We are four seniors who will be traveling to Spain at the middle of October. We are on a tour which we use a a base for our travel, but tend to go off on our own often for sites that are not included, and restaurants, as we usually do not like the restaurants the tour provides for dinner. We like good food, like to dine with the locals, eat most anything, and not necessarily looking for $$$$ meals unless it is truly exceptional and a "not to be missed." Our needs are as follows:

Madrid - 2 nights
Cordoba - 1 nigjts
Seville 2 nights
Granada 1 night
Valencia-2 nights
Barcelona- 5 nights ( In Barcelona we will be 3 nights at an AirBNB in the Gothic Quarter.

One of the best things you can do is have tapas. That way you can have small tastes of various foods and not eat a lot. In Barcelona, Madrid, and Sevilla is fun to go tasca (tapas bars) hopping. You go from one place to another sampling each specialties.

Please note that in Spain lunch is the big meal. Then the Spanish have tapas sometime between 5 to 9. And the full meal restaurants open again at 9 PM. There will be a few restaurants open between lunch and 9 PM as concessions to tourists, but not a lot.

Breakfast is not a big deal.

"Like to dine with locals". Take a look at the various restaurant options and recommendations presented in Maribel's Guides (www.maribelsguides.com).

Be sure to know about the daily rhythm - from a negligible breakfast (if you can call it that) to a substantial lunch followed by the siesta hours, then a gradual coming back to life, aperitif-and-tapas hour, and the very late start of the kitchens for dinner.

If you want to "eat with the locals" you will probably not get served dinner before ten PM!

Restaurants that orient themselves towards the tourists who want to eat earlier can be found, but you won't be "eating with the locals".

The siesta hours mean that you may be the only ones in some spots, and looking at shutters and "Cerrado" (closed) signs.

So factor these "rhythms" into your plans and go with the flow.

The concept of a siesta after lunch is pretty much a thing of the past outside of a few small villages in Andalucia. If you find youself in the countryside, say wine touring in the Rioja, then plan on dining a little earlier in the evening then you would in the city. It can be very quiet after 10:00 in Lagaradia, but still quite active in Logroño until later in the evening.

Desayuno, breakfast, is taken early in the day, followed by Almuerzo (not lunch) in late morning, before noon.

Lunch, comida, begins at 1:30 pm at most restaurants in Madrid as an example (Ramón Freixa, Kabuki Wellington, Lúa, DSTAgE, Alabaster, La Huerta de Tudela, Bacira & El Club Allard), 2:00 pm at others (DiverXO & Coque) and 1:00 pm at still a few others (Álbora, A'Barra, More & El Paraguas). The boys at Arzábal open for lunch at 12:30.

Dinner, cena, at most restaurants begins at 8:30, but as noted, most 'locals' don't go out for dinner until after 9:00, but then most restaurants, in places like Madrid, quit serving before 11:00 pm and close before midnight.

Evening tapas generally beging around 7:30 pm. If you want tapas before lunch, then be there when the doors first open.

In Madrid, our hotel concierge recommended More in the Salamanca neighborhood. We loved the ambiance and the food was delicious.