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We are heading to Sevilla in May. Flying into Madrid, staying one night and then train south. We have 7 nights before we have to get up to Paris for my husband’s week long conference. I love the hotel Mercer (saw that ekscrunchy was staying there when I was reading thru threads) and I like the idea of staying in Sevilla and doing day trips from there rather than changing hotels. It looks as if Córdoba and Cadiz are doable excursions for the day. Is trying to go to Granada and back too crazy? Also does anyone know if there is a train to Barcelona from Granada? And lastly, any advice on a good stop between Granada and Barcelona if we don’t want to do it all in one day? Valencia might work, but I’m thinking of maybe a smaller village for stopping.

Seville - Granada is about 4 hours by train or bus - so yes go there and spend the night and fly to Barcelona or take train 7=8 hours though and Valencia is way off the main AVE (high speed) train line - so I'd fly from Granada to Barcelona. Or scratch Barcelona and stay in Seville area and fly to Paris - Barcelona is still an all-day train ride to Paris. To take trains Seville - Granada and then to Barcelona and Paris would eat up three of your 7 days. Anyway for lots on trains check www.ricksteves.com; BETS-European Rail Experts and www.seat61.com (great tips on booking own trains online at a discount) and www.renfe.com- Spanish Railways site.

Jerez-de-la-Frontera is another neat day trip from Seville - for Sherry tours and to see the famed Andalusian horses strutting in practice shows many days in local arena. Could be combined with nearby Cadiz.

I'd suggest staying more than one day in Madrid - Toledo is a gem and easy day trip from Madrid by train.

I do not recommend trying to visit Granada as a day trip from Seville. It would be a very long day, and you would have to time your transportation based on your entrance to the Alhambra. I think it would be stressful always looking at your watch to make sure you leave the Alhambra on time to get to the bus station. It's a lot of backtracking. The high speed train tracks aren't finished yet, so you either have to take the ALSA bus all the way, or do the train/bus combo. The Alhambra is magnificent; we spent almost all day there and then returned for the night visit. It should be savored, not rushed. Granada is an interesting city, too, so it would be nice to see a little bit of Granada. I would suggest 5 nights in Seville and 2 nights in Granada before heading to Barcelona. I am quite sure you could either fly from Granada to Barcelona or take the train from Granada to Barcelona. You can check rometorio.com for your travel options.

This might seem too rushed for you, but another possibility is 3 or 4 nights in Seville, 1 or 2 nights in Cordoba, and 2 nights in Granada. We loved Cordoba. We spent 2 nights there. While the Mezquita is outstanding, there is a lot more to Cordoba than just the Mezquita. With that said, Cordoba is more doable as a day trip from Seville than Granada would be.

I agree that Granada does not make a good day trip from Sevilla. I consider the Alhambra exceptional and was glad to have a full day plus an evening visit there, and could have used more. Even if you don’t want to spend that long, Granada holds a wealth of other treasures and so is easily worth at least 2, if not 3, nights.

BTW, the excellent source of information on travel options to which KarenWoo refers is rome2rio.com (not rometorio), and when using it, be sure to click through to the source links, as the main page is not sensitive to seasonal variation in transportation schedules.

Do I understand correctly that you want to visit Sevilla, Cordoba, Cadiz, and maybe Granada, and also Barcelona and perhaps Valencia in 7 days before heading to Paris? IMO, your time in Andalusia is painfully short, but I don’t know how to provide reasonable advice without a better sense of your plans or interests.

Hope that helps!

Thanks to everyone. I would like to respond to everyone but using my iPad on this site is a chore.

We’ve been to Madrid a fair amount so will just be staying overnight to recover from trip from LAX to Paris/Madrid. We will head down to Seville after one night in Madrid. I use trainline.eu for tgv tickets but may just buy tickets for Seville at station so we can be flexible about time. I may end up in Seville 4 nights and Granada 2 and then fly to Paris. I’d prefer not going to another hotel. I hate planes and always prefer trains in Europe but it’s true that we are wasting a lot of time getting to Barcelona to get fast train to Paris. Thanks for all your comments about logistics and places to see. Is cadiz a nice day trip? We live on the coast in California (Santa Barbara) so we get a lot of ocean time already.

That additional information really helps, IMO -- thanks! I (for one) hadn't understood that you were trying to get to Barcelona so you could take the train to Paris. I generally prefer trains to planes once in Europe, too -- but honestly, I'm not sure I'd spend a day or more traveling just for that, particularly in light of the opportunity costs. YMMV.

I haven't been to Cadiz, but think you could easily add a day to either Sevilla or Granada. As already noted, a 3-night stay in Granada is not unreasonable; 2 nights is, IMO, a bare minimum for a decent visit to the Alhambra. (Book ahead!) I wanted 3 full days in Sevilla and 2 full days in Cordoba, and I travel HARD! Right now, you have 4 days for those two cities together. Maybe you can just wait until you're in Sevilla to see if you feel you want to take another day trip?

My husband and I did Seville (4 nights), Granada (2 nights), and then we flew to Barcelona(5 nights)
I loved all 3, and found that it was the right amount of time, although i could have easily added a day to Granada.
The Alhambra was probably one of the best days we had. loved it. I also think Granada is underrated.
We did a day trip to Cordoba from Seville and I would not bother... I know lots on Fodors would be horrified to hear this, but I found this trip to be quite difficult. We are very fit and in our late 50's but found the day to be exhausting. Seville train station is not central so you will need to take a bus to get there. And once in Cordoba there is a about a 20 minute walk to Mezquita from the train station. It is fascinating, but with a short amount of time I would have preferred to walk around the streets of Seville.
I would enjoy Seville and not bother with day trips.

I'm not horrified but I did a day trip to Cordoba from Seville and don't remember any problem. Maybe I just took a taxi to the train station, I don't recall, but obviously you don't have to take a bus (my hotel was in Santa Cruz quarter so not too far). You also do NOT have to walk from the train station in Cordoba to the Mezquita, there are buses. YOu just have to do a little research ahead of time on those type of things. Or again, just take a taxi, it wouldn't be that expensive, only a couple euro one way. I thikn I took a taxi from the train staiton to the Alcazar, and then took the bus back at the end of the day.

this is the bus map in Cordoba
https://www.aucorsa.es/uploads/attac...sescordoba.pdf

Bus 03 goes to/from the RENFE train station and near the Mezquita (which is around that crook in the river), that is Martires stop.

If you are in Seville for long enough, I think Cordoba is more than worth the trouble. It really isn't that much trouble if you spring for a few taxis. By contrast, I only spent about half a day at the Alhambra and that was enough for me. I have never wanted to spend an entire day at just one historic site that I can think of. An entire historic city, sure, but not just one complex or one building.

I would not do a day trip to Granada from Seville for sure. I did one from Malaga and enjoyed it, but it's a lot closer. On the other hand, if you do not know if you will ever be back there and the Alhambra is on your bucket list, sure. It's just a long trip, if you do one of those day tour companies (the only way I'd consider it), it's about a 13 hr day and you start around 7 am. Of course many hours you can just relax on the bus (it's about 3 hrs each way). In fact, I have done things like that in Mexico and it was worth it to ruins and places I knew I'd never go on my own.

KJA, thank you for noting the correct spelling of the rome2rio website. You have good eyesight!

Quote:

Originally Posted by millie2112 (Post 16835511)

The train station in Seville was a very short cab ride from the Barrio Santa Cruz. And the Mezquita in Cordoba is a short cab ride from the train station. Cabs are not expensive in Spain. No reason to walk those two trips.

I did Cordoba as a daytrip on the way from Madrid to Seville, and found that to be perfectly feasible and worthwhile, although, if time allows, an overnight in Cordoba would be worthwhile, too. If nothing else, seeing the Mezquita is worth the effort,

In my opinion best options are Córdoba (just 45 minutes by train) and Cadiz, just one hour away by car or bus.
Buses run to Cadiz constantly from Plaza de Armas bus station and the rate is quite cheap.

Cadiz is a 3000 years old city so you got plenty to see and do, besides the beach and the views of course! :ok:

I’m not usually a guided tour kind of person but maybe taking a group tour from Sevilla to Alhambra wouldn’t be a bad idea. I do really like the idea of staying in one place and exploring. I’ve been to the Alhambra many decades ago, so it will be like a new visit. I love seeing new places but we do tend to get burned out after a certain amount of hours and enjoy just walking the streets of towns and eating. My husband surfs, so we may check out Cádiz or another beachfront town if weather (and waves) are good. What is everyone’s favorite sight in Sevilla? And I assume that Sevilla is best airport for flying to Paris, correct?

Again sorry I can’t respond to everyone personally. Ive not had great luck with the new site using my iPad and my quick replies seem to just go to the bottom. I appreciate all the info and thoughtful replies. I’ve been using this site since 2008 and it has helped me so much in our trips overseas!

Aside from the cities of Western Andalucia (Jerez, Cadiz), the "White Villages" in that region (e.g. Vejer de la Frontera, Medina-Sidonia, et al) are also a nice day trip from Sevilla. But I would not know if it can be done by public transport as I always had a car when in that part of Spain.

The Costa de la Luz is a premier location for surfing, but it's mostly wind-surfing or kite-surfing between Cadiz and Gibraltar. With Tarifa as its hotspot, but also many facilities/ surf shops to rent from in Conil (much closer to Cadiz than Tarifa). The "real" surfing is more the domain of Portugal's West Coast, i.e. that part facing the Atlantic, just around the SW corner of the Iberian peninsula (too far away from Sevilla).
But I would guess that also the nearest beaches around Conil can only be reached by car (or rather complicated or time-consuming by bus via Cadiz).

Thanks for the surfing information. My husband paddle surfs and last year we hit some good surfing spots in Basque area but he had problems finding good paddle boards to rent. I think he probably needs to concentrate on eating, drinking and sightseeing on this trip!

Viaiting a “white village” for the day from Sevilla sounds interesting. Starting to think I need to find an apt and stay the whole week in Sevilla. Although, I just read a trip report that raved about Malaga, so now I’m intrigued.

Andalusia - too many neat places! Cadiz did not do that much for me - oh a nice city and all- if you want some of the world's best surfing head to Portugal's Atlantic Coast instead of Barcelona - some of highest waves in world.

At his age, his waves are more about quality then quantity (and nothing over head high!)...we went to Lisbon a few years ago and this trip was between Andalucia, Portugal and Morocco and Andalucia emerged victorious. I’m changing my mind daily about the trip. Now contemplating Sevilla, Granada and Malaga or Sevilla, Granada and White village stay.

With 7 nights, Sevilla and just ONE other location would be well worth considering, IMO.

as you have only 7 days, pick two places and enjoy them... cut out the day trips. enjoying two places for 7 days is not a long time.

I posted this summary of our stay in Granada and Sevilla at Chowhound, so it is mainly about the food we ate. We took the bus from Madrid to Granada and stayed 2 nights and then took another bus to Sevilla. Loved everything and as I say below, a part of me enjoyed the Alcazar over the Alhambra. The Alhambra was just so very crowded.

I’ve been having a great discussion with Erica (I think she posts under that name on CH) and Maribel about places to eat on the fodor Spain message boards. Wanted to copy and paste it over here for anyone off to those two cities.

Maribel, we are enjoying Sevilla. A beautiful place and it reminds us a little bit of where we live, Santa Barbara. The Casa del Poeta hotel is lovely and a beautiful spot to sip some cava in the early evening in their stunning courtyard. Our first night here, we walked up to La Azotea (Calle Condé de Barajas) and I basically handed my notes from this thread to the waiter and said we want this meal (thank you Eks!). So we had the delicious large shrimp with sherry, small clams with artichoke, a larger artichoke dish with sweetbreads in a cheese sauce and then sliced angus beef with tomatoes, peppers and French fries. Needless to say we were stuffed but very happy. We ended up chatting with the owner Juan for awhile, his wife is from California, he lived in San Diego for awhile and my husband and he discovered a mutual love of surfing. Really delicious meal and I think we may go back to the more casual bar across the street tonight for our last dinner. Next day, after a big breakfast at the hotel we visited Salvador church and also got tickets for the Cathedral. For a very light lunch we went to Torch coffee, a third wave coffee place (very hipster) on the street that runs next to the river. For dinner we walked back up to the same neighborhood and put on our name in at Bar Eslava. We ended up outside on a high table and had a great succession of tapas. The cigar with cuttlefish, razor clams, the egg on mushroom pate, croquettes with delicious side potatoes, artichoke with almonds and salt cod and spare ribs with honey. Sadly they were out of fried sea anemone. Everything was wonderful and I had some very nice Albariño at $3 a glass. We always marvel at how inexpensive wine and beer is in Europe. In the US our wine costs would have been at least triple.

We also had two lovely days in Granada. There we really enjoyed Saint Germain for our first dinner. Pate on bread was the free tapas and then we ordered octopus, squid and a very comforting tomato with melted cheese dish. Our second night we walked over from our small but lovely hotel, Santa Isabel la Real, and had dinner with views of the Alhambra at Mirador de Morayma. Maribel, I saw your recommendation on a chow hound thread and it was perfect after a long day of walking and down hills and around the Alhambra. Really lovely week and now off to Paris on Saturday. Thanks so much for this thread!

Just to wrap up, we had a delicious last dinner at Petit Corner after a lovely afternoon at the Alcazar, perhaps my favorite over the Alhambra. We got there at 8 and got a table that had to be vacated by 9:45. Started with a tuna tartare because I realized we hadn’t had tuna yet and I knew the region is well known for its tuna. It was very flavorable and a nice change of pace. We continued with crougettes, artichoke with Ibérico ham, a duck and foie served on toast and one of my favorite dishes anywhere ever, octopus with “silky” potatoes, truffle oil and an egg. Just a delicious flavor bomb. Highly recommend. We had 3 wonderful dinners in Sevilla. Paris has a lot to live up to!