Going to Madrid and Barcelona for 4 nights each the first 2 weeks of March. Any recommendations on where to stay. Will have 4 adults (2 that sleep together), was thinking of an apartment and if not that, a well located hotel, nice but because I will have to get 2 rooms, not too pricey. Will do some museums but am more interested in walking, eating and drinking, hanging with the locals.
Would also like to go to a futbol (soccer) game in either city, how do you go about getting tickets?
Was then planning to rent a car to do side trips such as Toledo, Consuegra and then the outlying pueblos of Barcelona.
Plan is to fly into Madrid, 4 nights
Toledo, 1 night in a Parador
Albacete, 1 night (to visit a friend)

Have 3 open nights before heading to Barcelona (so far by car), any recommendations?

Barcelona, 3 - 4 nights

2 free nights before heading back to US, any recommendations?

The trains and buses in Sapin are fine and it is clearly not worth renting a car for Toledo especially if you are staying overnight.

The same holds true for seeing the sights outisde of Barcelona.

A different thought and I hope the Spaniards on the boaed will chime in. The word pueblo is not unviersally used in Spain. I am trying to recall the words used to decribe towns, but in our experience pueblo is not commonly used.

Sorry about "pueblo". My son is over there and that's what he used!
Don't you see more by car?

Yes, you will see more by car, but probably not for the areas you intend to go to--although I'm not familiar with Albacete.

If you could give an idea of about how much per room you would prefer to pay at a hotel, we could make better recommendations. Barcelona has an incredible number of apartments for very reasonable rates--like less than 200 euros per night for two double rooms, so that may be the best way to go.

Madrid to Toledo is a well traveled route by buses and tarins. The parador in Toledo is across the river from Toledo and offers a spectacular view but you would not drive across the river to see the sights. A car inside most Spanish cities is more of a nuisance than a help. And as JulieV pointed out there are areas where a car allows you see more, but not particularly in the areas you are describing.

AS far as word pueblo so concerned, that is way I asked the Spanairds to chime in and I wrote a cosuin in Spain. It is just a word that I do not remember hearing that much.

Hi,
My thought about the car was to get me in a weeks time from Madrid, Toledo, Albacete, maybe Valencia and eventually to Barcelona. Most of the time it's just 2 of us (from Albacete to Barcelona) but out of Madrid it would be 4 of us. I had looked at train fare betwen Madrid and Barcelona and just one way, was $230 (US).