You may check
Segovia (30 min by train)
Avila (1 1/2 hrs byy train)
Cordoba (2 hrs by train)
Sevilla (2 1/2 ha by train)
Salamanca (1 3/4 hrs by late evening train)

Segovia and Avila can be combinded with Salamanca

Consider just staying in Madrid! If you like art, Prado, Reine Sofia, and Thyssen-Bornemisza museums will keep you busy. Sorolla's home. Side trips as above-mentioned from there. Please do a report about your trip.

​​​

All good suggestions above. You could also stay a couple of nights in Toledo and possibly extend your time in Madrid. We also visited Toledo just for the day but would have preferred to linger.

My first choice would be to add Cordoba which we really enjoyed. The Mesquita was fascinating and the town is so charming.

I'm now debating adding enough days to see Madrid, Toledo, Cordoba, Sevilla before going to Morocco. Problems: (1) Getting to Tangier where the tour starts, from Sevilla. (2) Figuring how many days I need, at a minimum, to do the proposed itinerary. I need to keep it compact, as I'll already be away two weeks in addition to my Spain time, and if fate doesn't turn on me again, I plan to spend 7 weeks in Italy in spring 2022.

If it helps, photography, food, and museums are my main focus when traveling - I particularly like charm for photography, and impressionist art is about the most modern I'm very interested in. I have three museums in mind for Madrid, which for me seems like three days. A day for Toledo and spend the night; a day for Cordoba and spend the night? A day or two for Sevilla and spend the night? Then figure out how to get from Sevilla to Tangier. The only flights I could find were indirect and many hours long. It's a long train to Algeciras to take the ferry. It would be easier overall if I did Spain after Morocco, as the tour ends in Marrakesh and there are flights from there to Sevilla, but I'm concerned about getting as good of weather as it's possible to get at that time of year, and the end of October seems likelier than mid-November.

All thoughts welcome.

IMHO if you're planning a day for each of the big three museums in Madrid you're skimming the top. You also won't get to see much else. Especially with the limited daylight hours that time of year. Your dates won't work for catching the changing of the guard. Not unless they've changed the schedule. With the virus situation they might not even be doing the guard change. OTOH if you're in the city it's a good morning . Plenty of photos between the rehearsal and the actual performance. Once again IMHO the palace itself isn't worth too much time. At least not the interiors.

You'll likely want to go up to the Egyptian temple at sunset. Both getting there and the time you spend will use up more of your time in Madrid.

End of October versus mid November is very much a question of luck. It could be exactly the same. You might get washed away by the rains in October. Find it bright and sunny in November.

I'm viewing this as a taster trip in Spain. I'm not feeling a real burn to go, but since I have to fly through Madrid, figured I might as well at least hit the Prado, which is on my must-see-this-lifetime list. And then I started adding a bit more. What I am thinking is that I'll get a quick look, and if I don't feel I got enough time, I'll come back on a much longer trip. These days my typical trip is one country for 4+ weeks, so a return trip would be much more thorough. I realize I will be leaving a lot unseen.

Current thinking:

Madrid 4 nights/3 days
Toledo 1 night/1 day
Cordoba 1 night/1 day
Sevilla 1 night/1.5 days - maybe 2 nights/2.5 days?
Night in Algeciras, morning ferry to Tangier

That's as much time as I can possibly go for.

If I can travel between cities in the evening (say 6pm or so), I can avoid spending good daylight hours on transportation, have a dinner at an appropriate hour and get an early start sightseeing in the morning.

I know weather is a crapshoot. I'm willing to bet that my odds are better in October, though.

Four single night stops would not be my preferred option. Moving hotels always wastes time, which you don't have. If you want to reduce them, then you could visit Toledo as a day trip; visit Cordoba as a day trip from Seville; and travel to Tangier from Seville. There seem to be multiple options for the latter (e.g. Flixbus, train to Jerez or Cadiz and then onwards from there).

That would give you Madrid(5) - Seville(3) - Tangier(?).

New plan. It looks like getting to Tangier from Sevilla is really difficult - no direct flights, indirect flights are very long, or else train/ferry combo that is also slow. So now, fly into Madrid and immediately take the train to Sevilla.

Sevilla, 3 nights/2 days
Cordoba, 1 night/1+ days
Madrid, 4 nights, including daytrip to Toledo
Fly to Tangier and on to tour. I will have to fly back from Marrakesh and overnight in Madrid to get my flight back home,

I like checking out the evening vibe in cities, which is why I often will move just a little way and spend the night in a new place. Also, I hate to backtrack 45 minutes if I daytrip to Cordoba from Sevilla; that 1.5 hours is enough time to move hotels. But my mind is not yet made up on whether to move to Cordoba or daytrip from Sevilla. I think daytripping to Toledo is probably a good idea, as I can pick the driest day available to me, since I will want to take lots of outdoor photos.

That would work, artsnletters. But quicker would be to travel Seville - Jerez or Cadiz - Tangier. Tentative timetables say this is 5:20hrs total.

Your revised plan has you travel between Seville and Madrid twice instead of once plus the flight where you have to travel to Madrid airport, check in quite a long time before your flight, plus the flight, plus get from Tangier airport to your hotel. All that will take much longer than 5:20hrs.

I think the most time efficient route, assuming you have to fly in/out of Madrid would be: Seville on arrival in Spain - Morocco - Madrid. Maybe even Seville on arrival in Spain - Jerez or Cadiz for a night or two - Morocco - Madrid.

Whatever way you decide, it sounds like a great holiday and I hope you don't have to wait too long for it to be safe to travel.

It looks like leaving from Cadiz means taking the bus (hate buses, the buses on the tour are going to be tough for me) to Algeciras and the ferry from there. I didn't see an efficient way to get to Tangier from Sevilla. I looked into taking the train from Sevilla to Algeciras, but that's 4+ hours to Algeciras plus 2+ hours on the ferry, and it seems like returning to Madrid to fly (especially if from Cordoba rather than Sevilla) would be quicker and no more complicated.

My reluctance to save any of Spain until after Morocco is that as the season advances, the weather is more likely to be bad - although of course it could well be the opposite, one never knows, especially these days what with global warming. But looking at the odds... It also doesn't split my attention in the same way; I'll get into Spain mode in Spain, shift to Morocco mode in Morocco, and then shift back to American. For some time now I've been traveling to a single country for an extended period, and I guess I don't shift gears as easily/quickly as I used to.

I'm in group 1c for getting the vaccine, so ahead of the general population, and I'm thinking by fall having been vaccinated and possibly having a negative test will probably get you into other countries. At least I hope so! I am so tired of having my feet nailed to the floor. I/ve already had one trip killed by covid.

If I fly into Tangier, the tour company will handle the transfer from the airport, so that's not really a consideration. If I take the ferry, I'll be on my own to get from Ceuta into Tangier.

Is there a faster way to get from Cadiz to Tangier than what I'm seeing? It's 1:40 from Sevilla to Cadiz, plus about 4 hours for the bus and ferry to Tangier, and that's not taking into account that there's probably a wait between arriving in Cadiz and getting on the bus.

No problems, artsnletters. I understand about shifting cultures and languages.

I'm seeing a bus from Cadiz to Tarifa using Socibus at 12:20 - 13:50 (1:30hrs) and then ferry Tarifa to Tangier using FRS (1hr) but it's temporarily suspended so I can't see the timetable. The train Seville to Cadiz is like a local commuter train and perfectly comfortable. I can't remember where the bus station is relative to the train station but I suspect they're close together and anyway you can easily check that out online.

Comes and Socibus run from Jerez to Tarifa. In Jerez, the bus and train stations are close together.

I agree that trains are usually much nicer to travel on than buses so unless the times were better for Jerez, I'd take the train as far as Cadiz. Cadiz also has the advantage that you can take a stroll along the waterfront if you have time to kill. The train goes past Cadiz but not much further and I've never been on that bit. Taking the first train Seville to Cadiz would be appealing so you get a few hours in Cadiz.

Flixbus travels Seville to Tangier but I'm not a fan of sitting on buses either.

Who knows what timetables will be like by the time we can all travel? Certainly they may change.

It's not a quick journey but I think going via Madrid would be just as long or even longer.

I hear you absolutely about feeling constrained - ditto here! Hanging out on travel forums is about as close as I'm going to get to travelling overseas for a very long time. The problem I see is that the current vaccines prevent the recipient from getting sick but isn't proven to stop s/he from passing the virus on to others, even if they have no symptoms. So I think we all have to be patient and allow time for everyone to get vaccinated.

In normal (non Covid) times, you can take a bus from Sevilla to Tarifa (about 3 hrs) and change there to the rather frequent FRS catamaran to Tanger Ville. Count 6-8 hrs for the whole trip.
The deour via Madrid Barajas airport doesn't last longer, but is much more expensive.

The more I think about it, the more I think I want to have all of Spain before Morocco.

Bus and catamaran, ugh. The last catamaran trip I took didn't go well. I'm prone to motion sickness - I'm a bit concerned how the bus tour kin Morocco is going to go when we are on winding roads. I don't like flying either, but there are drugs for that. Train travel I actually enjoy! I like being other places, but dislike most methods of getting to them. I'll have to ponder what to do a while more.

I hope I'm not getting excited for nothing. My last two trips didn't come off, the most recent one due to covid, but the previous one due to an injury suffered en route to my destination. I really hope the third time is the charm!

.---

Just a logistics comment. Tangier (Tanger) has 2 ports, Tangier Ville (in town) & Tangier Med (out of town). Ferries from Tarifa go to Tangier Ville which is the one you want, from other ports in Spain, as far as I know, to Tangier Med. So plan on making your way to Tarifa if you decide to arrive by ferry. Also, if I recall correctly, the ferry is not a catamaran.

I've never flown from Spain to Morocco but, though possibly a roundabout route, there are trains from Casablanca to Tangier (abt. 2 hours). There are many more flights to Casablanca than anywhere else in Morocco so you might check on flights from Spain. Then train from airport into town to Casa Voyageurs (main station), change to direct Casa-Tangier train. It may be silly but it may not be & saves you having to take a bus. The ride up the coast is quite pleasant.

I call this kind of boat catamaran

I do too, but the ones I've taken between Tangier & Tarifa were larger car ferries, though I suppose this one might take cars & the larger ones could be much bigger catamarans. Next time I'll look more closely.