brandonpeters

Greetings,

My family has come up with a 19 night itinerary for our next summer's trip to Spain. We have not included Madrid in our plans and I am hoping anyone who has been to Spain for 2 to 3 weeks can let me know if the itinerary is not only interesting, but fun and relaxing as well (we are a family of 4, my wife and I and our 2 teenage kids).

Day 1 - Day 6: Seville, spend 6 nights, with two day trips (by train) to Cordoba and Ronda
Day 7: drive to Cadiz (about 120km), spend 2 nights
Day 9: drive to Granada (about 290km), spend 2 nights
Day 11: drive to Valencia (about 480km), spend 3 nights
Day 14: fly to Majorca, spend 6 nights
Day 20: fly home


Would you replace any of the above destinations/towns with somewhere else we have not considered? In our planning, we wanted a good mix of culture, museums, great architecture, great food and definitely time relaxing in a beautiful, Mediterranean island setting.

Thank you very much.

Brandon Peters

kja

Should be nice!

Some comments:
- You might consider taking the bus to/from Ronda rather than the train -- I believe the bus is about 2 hours each way, while the train is about 3.5 hours. But I could be wrong! Check rome2rio.com, and be sure to click through to the underlying links, as the main web page is not sensitive to seasonal variation in schedules.

- Depending on your interests, you might want a bit more time in Sevilla. 6 nights really gives you only 5 days, and if you are using 2 of them for day trips, you've cut your time in Sevilla down to just 3 days. Maybe that would be enough for you, but Sevilla certainly has enough to see to keep one very busy for 3 days -- and you did say you want a relaxing trip.

- Many people visit Cordoba as a day trip from Sevilla, and doing so might make most sense if you don't want to relocate with any frequency. FWIW, I was glad to have 2 full days in Cordoba.

- 2 nights in Granada really only gives you time for the Alhambra (and BTW, book your tickets for the Alhambra as far in advance as possible!) If you want to see any of Granada's other gems, you might want to add at least a night.

- You couldn't pay me enough to use a car for Cadiz or Granada when you have excellent public transportation options and will need to figure out what to do with a car while in these cities. YMMV.

- That's a LONG drive from Granada to Valencia.

Hope that helps!

neckervd

There is no direct train line from Sevilla to Ronda, you would have to make the huge detour via Antequera. Take the direct bus.
If you want to DRIVE to Valencia (public transport is fine, but it's up to you), I would change the program as follows:
Day trip by train from Sevilla to Cadiz.
Drive from Sevilla to Ronda/Cueva de Pileta/Pueblos blancos and sleep at Ronda.
Drive from Ronda to Estepona and along the coast to Malaga ad sleep there.
Drive from Malaga to Granada (2 nights) - Almeria - Cabo de Gata Park (San Jose or so) and sleep there (2 nights if you want to enjoy the beaches).
Drive from Cabo de Gata Park to Pulpi-Aguilas (beaches!) - Cartagena.
Visit the Roman stuff o Cartagena. Drive to the sandy beaches of Calblanque Park if you are interested in.
Drive to Torrevieja - Alicante - Altea - Denia (all beach resorts); drop off the car.
Go by catamaran to Formentera and stay at Playa Mitjorn.
Fly home from Ibiza (or go by catamaran to Mallorca and fly home from there, if it's easier for you).

isabel

It looks like a fabulous itinerary except not in summer. I've been to Italy or Spain almost every July for the past 20 years and love it so heat doesn't bother me. The one place I listened to people and decided not to visit in summer was Andalucia. Seville is the hottest city in Europe, average summer temp is 96 (compared to high 80s in Madrid, Rome, Florence, etc.) Each summer while traveling I look at the weather in the rest of Europe and am always impressed with the temps in Seville and surrounding area. Two Julys ago I was in northern Spain (average high in Bilbao is 78) and day after day they were talking about Seville with temps around 117. Yes I know people live there but they don't go out sightseeing every day. I was in Andalucia twice in March and loved it.

brandonpeters

Thank you both for your advice. I really appreciate it.

Because we will be staying in Majorca for some time, we would rather travel direct to Valencia and see it then drive along the coast as we will have our fill of beach time in Majorca. As well, it may be a long drive from Granada to Valencia, but we should be able to do it in about 4 hours, so if we leave in the morning, we should arrive in mid-afternoon.


A few questions:

- Is Cadiz worth staying overnight or should I add that extra night to Granada (3 in total)?
- Is Cadiz worth the day trip or should I spend the extra day in Seville?
- If you had to choose one as a day trip, would it be Cadiz or Ronda?
- I have read quite a bit about Valencia and really want to visit it and it also has short, direct flights to Majorca. Is 3 nights in Valencia about right?
- Is 6 nights in Majorca about right?


Thanks again.

plambers

my concern for you is the heat. while I love this area it will be super hot. have never been to cadiz but when we were talking to locals, even in madrid, they all mentioned they loved cadiz.

neckervd

Granada - Valencia is all by (boring) motorway, far away from the Sea: 6 hrs by car (1 hr less if you stay at hotels outside the cities, close to the motorway) or 8 hrs by direct bus. A train ride from Cordoba to Valencia would last just 3 hrs.
There are many flights and some ferries from Valencia to Palma de Mallorca, indeed.
The beaches of Formentera I mentioned are much nicer and less crowded than those of Mallorca.

twk

I, too, would be hesitant to recommend Seville that time of year. I think you would end up spending the afternoon siesta at your hotel/apartment, enjoying the air conditioning, rather than subjecting yourself to the heat (and I live in Texas where triple digit temperatures are normal in July).

We stopped in Ronda for an afternoon on our drive from Seville to Marbella. I really enjoyed that day of driving. It would be difficult to do Ronda as a daytrip from Seville. If you have a rental car for your stay in Granada, you're just going to have to find a place to park it, as it will be useless for seeing Granada.

PalenQ

The bus between Seville and Ronda goes thru the iconic white villages and stops in some for a short time - anyway a nice ride. It seems that Ronda is a long day trip and Cadiz a short one. I'd visit Jerez de la Frontera perhaps from Cadiz next door and hit some of the famous Sherry Houses ('sherry' being a British corruption of the word Jerez when the Brits dominated the Spanish sherry market - little old ladies in Britain loved their sherry!} And, in Jerez you can also see practice sessions or real sessions of the famous Andalusian Horses in the local equestrian arena many day. Other than that just a so-so town but I enjoyed those two things very much: https://www.realescuela.org/en/programacion.cfm

ribeirasacra

do not drive the coastal route between Granada to Valencia.There is nothing but boring!
Read this.
Granada to Valencia - which route?
The OP of that question oddly thinks there is nothing wrong with glass house. When in fact these are not glass houses, but poly tunnels. So I doubt if they really understood.

As for advice about weather. Please ignore everything written. Weather is variable and weather history charts that some like to piton you too will not give you any idea of what is going to happen.

brandonpeters

Looking at the temperatures this past June in Seville, they were in the low to mid thirties, so although it may get very hot for a day or two, that will not stop us from enjoying the area.

If we are to stick with our original plan above, we are torn between spending the two day/two nights in Cadiz or spending that time taking day trips to the gorgeous and fascinating small towns of Arcos de da Frontera, Baeza, Ubeda and Ecija, among so many others.

As well, instead of driving to Valencia for 3 days and then flying to Majorca for 6 days, we are now also considering the two following options fore those 9 days:
- Spending the time in Southern Spain, spending the 2 days in Cadiz and then basing ourselves in a beach town(s) to get our beach/relaxing time
- Flying from Seville to Sicily for the 9 days to experience a part of this supposedly gorgeous island and to get another cultural experience. We would be able to see Palermo for a few days then relax in a beach seaside town, taking day trips from there and then flying home from Palermo.

What would you do?

Thanks

MyriamC

480 km isn't too bad. Autoviás are usually quiet. It's just the last part, before entering Valencia, that is usually busy.
Last month we drove Moraira - Toledo (490 km) on the Autovía in four and a half hours.

I didn't find Cádiz very interesting. But the coast between Cádiz and Gibraltar (Costa de la Luz) is superb if you want some beachlife. Conil de la Frontera, Bolonia, Tarifa, ... We have spent many holidays there. My most recent album: