Spain May 20 - 30
 

Getting closer to our 1st trip to Spain and way behind on planning. Any advise and reccomendation are greatly appreciated :)
We have hotel accomodations booked in Madrid for 2 nights, Seville for 2 nights and Barcelona for 3 nights.
Flying into Madrid and out of Barcelona, so the itinerary looks sort of like:
Madrid....Seville....Granada....Valencia....Barcel ona

I just found Maribel's guides which seem to have a great deal of very useful information. We may have too many cities on our agenda for a 10 day trip... Do you think we should eliminate some?

We have not reserved any rooms between seville and barcelona and are hoping to not stay in hotels / hostels... would love to find some inexpensive, but good bed and breakfast type accomodations. Any thoughts?
We will have a car when we get to seville and plan to drive to granada for a night, onwards to valencia for another night before getting into Barcelona where we will return the car.
i understand that a car is useless in Granada, so i would think we should find lodging away from the town center. Is there a way to find local village accomodations?

In Valencia, I hear the Paella is to die for... any good spots? Also need advise on where to stay...

Thanks so much for all your feedback!!!

You have not worked actual travel time into your schedule which will leave you little time to see wahtever you thought you would see. And a diversion to Valencia just for paella, will cost even more time.

Spain is not really a B & B type of country even though there are more and more.

That does not sound like fun to me. If you just want to see these places it can be done. You will spend most of your time on very long boring drives with gas at $10 per gallon and expensive tolls. With 10 days I would spend all of them in Madrid, Seville, Granada and Malaga. If you have to go to Barcelona then I would just go to Madrid, Seville, Granada, then fly to Barcelona. Bed and Breakfasts are usually called Hostals in Spain. I would not want to stay on the outskirts of Granada. Just put your car in a parking garage downtown or get a hotel near the Alhambra w/ a garage like Hotel Alixares. Carmen de la Alcubila is a beautiful hostal in Granada that I have always wanted to stay at.

'We may have too many cities on our agenda for a 10 day trip. Do you think we should eliminate some?' - Yes.

This is no small country to travel and I hope you have some plan for travel between these cities if you wish to do any justice to them - and sorry, if you have not, I have no sympathy.

2 night in Madrid is sort of a day and half - way too short even if you are not interested in art and don't suffer jet-lag.
I would skip Valencia ( hard to fit in) and fly Vueling ( cheap) from Granada to Barcelona

3 days Madrid ,train to
2 days Seville, bus to
one day and night Granada, fly to
3 days Barcelona

I won't tell you to skip Valencia, but I will suggest you return the car here and take the train to Barcelona.

There is so much to see around or in the mentioned cities that, yes, you could eliminate half of them and still be happy.

You should stay in Granada two nights so that you can take advantage of the car trip there to see something along the way. I don't have my map out but if Carmona is on the way, a sweet town. Then after seeing the Alhambra the next day, it would be tiring to get in a car and DRIVE.

Stop to see the Guadix cave houses if it's not raining


You may want to stay in a Parador.. maybe in Ubeda o Baeza. I would use the car to get to these out of the way places and take a more leisurely trip to your destination .

I agree, you could fly to Barcelona OR drive through some small towns and hit Valencia at some point. But if you do come to Valencia, consider the train to Barcelona unless there are four of you in the car.

Good paella.. L'Estimat ( among others) along the Malvarrosa beach area. Or Casa Navarro at the Patacona area. Both are good, as are many others. Everyone has his favorite place to go.

or your second night in the Granada area could be somewhere not too far away after the Alhambra.

Granada - Valencia should be about 5 hours. Excellent highway. (free )No tolls until you hit Valencia towards Barcelona if you do not take the coast road from Alicante to Valenica, but rather the interior road to Valencia from Alicante.

In 10 days you can see a little of Madrid and a little north - OR a little south. Not both. Otherwise you will be in transit your entire vacation.

We have ben to Spain several time - to Andalusia twice Once 10 days and once 2 - and we still have a lot to see. Madrid was on top of that., We did north in separate trips.

Also 0 you need to realize that the weather can be VERY hot - esp in the south - so you need to get lodgings with good AC and a pool - if you don;t want to swelter the whole time.

Really you will need to rethink this - or probably be very disappointed.

Honestly with only 10 days this seems like a perfect Madrid/Barcelona combination trip. I'd plan daytrips out of both places (Toledo & Segovia for Madrid and Girona & Tarragona/Montserrat/Vic for Barcelona).

I'd save Andalucia for another trip as it seems you really want to visit Sevilla & Granada. Sevilla/Granada really deserve at least 6 nights just for these 2.

Yes, this is cramped and not the way a lot of people like to travel but if someone is set on seeing those cities, and not the area around one or two destinations, the distances are doable. Otherwise, if your hotel reservations are cancelable, take advice more and stay more focused on fewer areas.

Next week will not be that hot.

Thank you Thank you!!!! The feedback is very appreciated.
I totally took the aspect of a "vacation" out of this trip.

As much as i would love to see all of the cities, its just not possible to enjoy in such short a time. I wish i had the whole summer.

Thankfully, we are able to change the itinerary and move things around. I will def. take up all the advise rec'd.
I think a longer stay in Madrid is warranted with a day trip to Toledo.

I agree that Andalucia should be a trip in itself! Thank you for that reccomendation.

One last question:
whats the cheapest way to catch a soccer game?

thank you again!