Hi all, just working out a travel itinerary for March/April. We're flying in and out of Barcelona and want to spend about a week there overall, and the other week or so in Andalucia. I prefer to stay in places for a few nights than to move around a lot and fit in a lot more cities. We could do the Andalucia loop either direction I suppose --we'll fly from Barcelona to and form the Andalucia, but I'm not currently sure how we'll go between the cities down there, bus, train car all seem to be option but I'm not sure which is best. Current itinerary is below, welcome any feedback or suggestions.
Day 1 Arrive BCN late evening
Day 2 Barcelona
Day 3 Barcelona
Day 4 To Granada
Day 5 Granada
Day 6 Granada
Day 7 Granada
Day 8 To Ronda
Day 9 Ronda
Day 10 Ronda
Day 11 To Seville
Day 12 Seville
Day 13 Seville
Day 14 Seville
Day 15 Seville
Day 16 (holding for moving around if needed)
Day 17 To Barcelona
Day 18 Barcelona
Day 19 Barcelona
Day 20 Barcelona
Day 21 Barcelona
Day 22 Barcelona depart early next morning

I'd take a brief look at Ronda, whose attraction is the deep gorge that bisects it and put those days into Cordoba, which many here rave about - great old cathedral that was former mosque and just neat old town. Could do a day trip there from Seville but it would also be a nice base for a few days.

Granada to Ronda either train or bus - buses may be cheaper but trains IME are always more comfy than buses. If do Ronda to Seville take the bus that stops at a few of the iconic white villages of Andalusia. Ronda-Cordoba and Cordoba-Seville trains are best. You could save money on trains by booking in advance to get limited discounted tickets but since you trips are fairly short buying as you go along is not much more. For lots on trains check www.seat61.com - didactic info on booking online your own train tickets; BETS-European Rail Experts and www.ricksteves.com.

I'd say if just staying in Granada 2 days for most would be fine - take other days IMO and put into Malaga - nice old historic seaside city or other place. If you want to take train to Madrid and stays there a few days (Toledo is a short and awesome day trip) and train to Barcelona - splits up long train trip and you can see some nice things in Madrid and see the lay of the land in between Seville and Barcelona..

Have you made your airline reservations yet? If not, I recommend doing an open-jaw, or multi-city reservation. For example, you could fly into Barcelona and fly home from Seville. It saves you backtracking to Barcelona. If you can do this, then spend your first week in Barcelona, and then travel to Andalucia, and fly home from Seville.

Right now you have 4 nights in Granada but that might not be necessary unless you want to do day trips from there. We spent 2 nights in Granada, but could have used a 3rd. Five nights in Seville is good. We had 4 nights and it would have been nice to have an extra night. Are you planning day trips from Seville?

I have not been to Ronda or other white villages. Some people might think 3 nights is too much but it depends on what you want to do there. Do you plan on visiting other white villages?

Regarding transportation, I recommend either the trains or the ALSA bus. Parking and driving in Granada and Seville would be a nightmare. You might need a car for Ronda and the other white villages, but I believe some people have said you can take a bus to Ronda.

Are you planning on visiting Cordoba as a day trip from Seville? The Mezquita is amazing, but there is more to Cordoba than just the Mezquita. It was one of our favorite cities. You said you don't like to move around a lot, but you could consider spending a night or two in Cordoba. With a 3-week trip, I think you have the time to spend a night or two in Cordoba, unless you feel that would be too stressful.

Should be nice, and should be a leisurely trip!

Many people visit Cordoba as a day trip from Sevilla, but I was glad to have had 2 nights there, and my travel pace is not at all leisurely. You might consider taking a night from Granada and another from either Ronda or Sevilla to add a couple of nights in Cordoba. Just a thought!

For your transportation options, consult rome2rio.com – just be sure to click through all the underlying links, as information on the main page is not sensitive to seasonal variation.

I didn’t write a trip report on my time in Andalusia, but you might find some useful information about Barcelona (and possible day trips therefrom) in this trip report:
Four Awesome Weeks in the North of Spain and Catalunya

Thanks all for the suggestions! We did already get the RT international tickets from Barcelona, so we will have to keep that part, but I appreciate the suggestions of deceasing a day from Granada and/or Ronda to be able to stay a night or two in Cordoba. I did hear there was some nice hiking around Ronda we might check out, but I'm sure we can adjust a couple days if everyone is thinking that Cordoba is worth an overnight rather than a day trip.

If we fly from Barcelona to Granada, would it be worthwhile to rent a car in Granada to drive to Ronda and then drive to Seville and return the car there? (and then take the train from Seville to Cordoba and fly back to Barcelona from Cordoba). We could do buses between Granada-->Ronda-->Seville, if that really works well, but I wasn't sure if a car in that part would make more sense or be more trouble. And I know that some places are more accommodating to renting and returning the car at different places, but I'm not sure if that's the case here.

Thanks so much all!!!

A car would be nice - you can drive thru the iconic white towns/villages and probably access hiking areas easier. Try to get a hotel with parking - cars are nice because you and your bags go right to the hotel. If car drive to Cordoba too.

If you are just spending one night in Ronda, then yes, I think a rental car to make the leg from Granada to Seville would be a good idea. You can see Ronda, then on your trip from Ronda to Seville, you could see Grazalema, Zahara, and some other hill towns--maybe even Arcos if you want a full day of seeing hill towns.

We had no trouble renting from Hertz doing that in reverse (pick up in Seville, drop in Granada). Driving in Spain is easy and fun. The only issue is where you park. That depends on where you stay, obviously. In Ronda, they have a garage under the central plaza in the new town that would be convenient for hotels located nearby. Where you would pick up your car in Granada depends on which rental outfit you choose (Hertz/Thrifty was easy at Hotel Center), but in Seville, you will almost certainly want to drop off at Santa Justa rail station, which is easy to reach via major streets when you are coming from the East.

You couldn't pay me to rent a car for this itinerary! Although twk has noted some things you could do if you had one, you certainly don't need a car for the places you list, parking in any of the cities could be more of an encumbrance than a help, and you don't have much (if any) extra time to take advantage of opportunities to explore places that you can't reach by public transportation. Just my opinion!

Thanks kja -- I wouldn't normally and OF COURSE not in any of the cities--parking in crowded cities is the worst and I don't even do it at home. The only "city" I was even considering parking in was Ronda, which I thought might be easier than in a bigger city. Especially as . If we got a car it would only be to drive to and from Ronda-- and we would only have the car in Granada and Seville for the short time it would take us to pick up and return it. But if the public transit to and from Rhonda is just as fast and easy (it sounds like that would taking a bus between Granada and Ronda and then Ronda and Seville), that could work just as well. I'm not planning to drive around to a lot of other towns so I don't think it would be necessary there, but thought it might be quicker than the buses and allow us to go hiking more easily while we spend a couple days in Ronda.

The updated itinerary would look like this, though I'm still debating keeping 3 days in Granada vs moving one back to Ronda depending on how many hiking trails we find nearby that look good and if we can get to them easily. It seemed like there were also a couple cool caves nearby, which seemed neat too.

Day 1 Arrive BCN late evening
Day 2 Barcelona
Day 3 Barcelona
Day 4 Fly To Granada
Day 5 Granada
Day 6 Granada - Alhambra AM
Day 7 Granada (maybe leave for Ronda today instead)
Day 8 Car or Bus To Ronda (if renting car, pick up only before departure
Day 9 Ronda
Day 10 Car or bus To Seville (return car if rented)
Day 11 Seville
Day 12 Seville
Day 13 Seville
Day 14 Seville
Day 15 Train to Cordoba
Day 16 Cordoba
Day 17 Fly To Barcelona
Day 18 Barcelona
Day 19 Barcelona
Day 20 Barcelona
Day 21 Barcelona
Day 22 Barcelona — depart early next morning

I agree that a car is a liability in any city of substantial size, and even in Ronda, you don't need it to see the sights in that town. Where it is useful in Andalucia, is seeing the hill towns, and driving the coast road, if either of those interest you (they would not be as high on my list as Seville, Cordoba, and Granada). I may be in the minority on this, and I usually prefer to spend time in a place, but there are places where the drive is part of the fun, and I think that's the case with the Pueblos Blanco. There's nothing particularly magical about walking around these towns, it's seeing their situation on the broad scale, that is interest. And you can most easily do this (from a quantity and quality standpoint) by car.

So, while parking a car for a nigh in Ronda would be a slight hassle, if you really want to see the hill towns, I personally think it's worth. For a 2 week trip like this, I'm just talking about renting a car for 2 or 3 days, max. The rest I would do by public transportation.

Your updated itinerary looks sweet.

Hey, I did say that twk had noted the advantages of having a car for part of the trip! (My apologies, twk, if you took my comment as a criticism -- it was NOT intended as one.) I visited Ronda without a car, but I didn't make it to any of the other Pueblos Blanco.

Keep in mind that the itinerary you mentioned while very nice and is very similar to the one I did on my first trip to Spain many years ago, is fairly along the tourist track of Spain.

If you would like to explore other incredibly beautiful areas of Spain that mostly Spaniards and few Europeans visit, I'd highly recommend the town of Cadiz , also in the south. It has perfectly preserved ancient plazas and remains one of Spain's best kept secrets. If you do makes to Cadiz, I'd also recommend visiting La Barrosa beach which was voted Spain's most beautiful several years in a row. You could also visit Jerez de la Frontera nearby the famous town that supplies Cherry to the world.

For a wholly different experience in Spain, you could also visit the north coast which is incredibly lush and green and would give a whole other perspective on Spain. Places that come to mind no only include one of the most beautiful cities in the world, San Sebastian, but also low key and perfectly in tact ancient towns like Santiago de Compostela (famous for catholic pilgrims but I went and loved merely as a tourist) or Oviedo, Woody Allen's "favorite city in the world."

Barcelona while very nice for a couple of days, is over run by tourists and scam artists and I would not spend more than a weekend there. It is considered a tourist trap by most Spaniards and people in the know. I've noticed that you completely omitted Madrid from your itinerary which is a shame because it is one of the world's greatest capitals and combines endearing cute alleyways with grand architecture and avenues built by the Austrians in addition to world class museums comparable to those in Paris.

Spain is enormous and holds a wealth of destinations worthy of exploration, including – among MANY other fascinating places -- Madrid (easy to include in a future trip, as it has an international airport), Cadiz (which, of course, is no longer undiscovered), and the north coast (not a place I would visit in March/April, but you can check weatherbase.com for climate data to see whether it suits your interests better than other locations in your current plan). And while certain parts of Barcelona – notably Las Ramblas – can be packed with tourists (particularly when cruise ships are in the area) and warrant caution against scam artists, there is certainly much in Barcelona that is worth seeing, is not overrun, and is not dominated by scam artists. I wish I’d had more than the 5 full days I had for the city itself, and of course, you have a wide range of day-trip opportunities from Barcelona.

My personal opinion – and it is just that – is that you have a very nice plan. Enjoy!

No offense taken. Just wanted to say that while I generally agree that public transport is the way to go, there were a couple of routes in Andalucia where I prefer the rental car option, although I recognize that is far from a universal opinion. Varying opinions are what make the board interesting.

Well not everyone has the opportunity to keep travelling back to the same country over and over again. I’d land in Barcelona and depart from Madrid!

Barcelona is nice but Madrid is a lot more authentic and doesn’t mainly cater to tourists like Barcelona. Imagine visiting England and just skipping London! It’s a lot more local and Spanish than BCN and in my opinion not to be missed by any means.

Yeah folks here seem nonplussed with Madrid it seems - very few seem to want to stay there much but I agree with chillout and there are some great day trips to. I guess Madrid's overall looks outside few places to too modern for many but it does have some gems.

I don't think anyone is nonplussed with Madrid - it's not surprising or confusing.

I think quite a few people aren't thrilled with it, and I am one of them, though I'd be willing to give it another chance once I've seen the myriad other more attractive things to me in Europe.

I'm a great fan of Madrid, but I find the idea that it is "a lot more local and Spanish" than anywhere else a bizarre statement -- I found it decidedly cosmopolitan and, as the person who described it that way noted, it bears the clear architectural heritage of having been built when the area was part of the Hapsburg empire. More generally, Spain is such a delightful collection of places with different histories that I can't imagine describing any place "more Spanish" than another. In contrast, I can imagine saying that Sevilla is quintessentially Andalusian, or Oviedo classically Asturian, or Barcelona prototypically Catalan, etc. That said, I firmly believe that we are all entitled to our own opinions, and these are just mine.

Madrid isn’t more Spanish than every where else in Spain and I do find it bizarre that you made up that statement.

Madrid is certainly more Spanish than Barcelona is authentically Catalan because Barcelona was a no-go zone for foreighners up to the 80s and was specifically cleaned up and heaviliy developed then marketed abroad as a tourist destination. A lot of places around town were created as tourist attractions and so are not representitive of Catalan or even Spanish heritage for that matter. On the other Madrid is not only a grand European capital but it has many neighborhoods that have been perfectly preserved for centuries with businesses that operated for many generations. I used to go every month to a honey shop there operated by a grandma whose family owned the badiness for centuries. Ditto for her neighbor the baker and the gentlemen down that street whose family fumes and smokes paprika and are well-known in that business for so many generations.

Madrid has so much depth to it and is unique in the sense that it does not cater to tourists but to actual Spaniards who enjoy a high quality of life. To me comparing it to Barcelona is sort of like comparing Orlando to New York.