Hi all,

Thanks again for all the help with our trip planning. We had a wonderful trip, in part thanks to all of you, especially you of course Maribel, but so many others - progol, karenwoo, michael, etc. as well! This trip report is my attempt to both report back and pay it forward.

First, for all those who might be considering how long to spend where, as we all seem to agonize about that (I know I did!) for this part of España - we spent 5 nights Sevilla, 4 Granada, 4 Córdoba, 2 Toledo, and 1 night in Madrid at end (we'd spent 5 nights in Madrid not that long ago). We were very happy with this! We both easily could have spent more time in each city. I know many people thought 4 nights in Granada and Córdoba might be a bit long, but one of our favorite things on trips is having time not just to see the main attractions but to wander and soak in the atmosphere. Also, because we had some physical limitations this trip and knew we had to limit our total amount of steps for each day to roughly 4 miles, we were moving at a very relaxed/slow pace. And finally, while most on these threads seem to have their hearts stolen by Sevilla, for us it was Granada, with Córdoba coming in second. We very much enjoyed Sevilla! It just wasn't our favorite once we went to the others. Affirms for us that we adore both mountain settings and smaller cities. But, if you're in good physical shape and once you've seen the "main" sights you're ready to move on, then our amount of time might be too much for your liking. Also, because we were so happy where we were (and also because I was a little sick for a couple days when we were in Córdoba), we didn't end up doing any of the "maybe" daytrips we'd thought of, so we didn't get to Ronda, Málaga, or any of the other lovely possibilities. Plenty to return for!

I'll start with the lodging review, and then either continue or come back for the more fun parts later...
In Sevilla, we stayed at Suites Maestranza - Santas Patronas by Magno Apartments. Check-in was easy, it was clean, quiet, had a comfortable bed and excellent water pressure, and was in a wonderful location. But, we had a major problem with a horrible odor coming up from the drain in the bathroom. We had to keep the bathroom door closed to contain it, but of course that worsened it in the bathroom itself. We literally had to hold our breath each time we first went into the bathroom, until we re-accustomed ourselves to it. They tried to help by bringing something for us to pour in the drain as well as a diffuser with sweet smell to cover it up a bit, but these only helped minimally. They've since apologized and said they brought in an outside company who has since fixed the problem. Honestly, tho', while I don't generally look for freebies, I thought they should've made it right by at least offering a slight discount or something. In many years of travel, I've hardly ever had a complaint about our lodging, so when I say it had a horrible odor, I do mean horrible - we're generally very tolerant of issues if they're only small ones.

Ok, on to Granada - we stayed at Aljibe Rodrigo del Campo, 2B, and loved absolutely everything about this place. Perfect location in a beautifully restored building, charmingly decorated, clean, spacious, with many extra touches and details. I highly recommend this place - I give lots of 8's and 9's in reviews, but this place earned a 10.

In Córdoba, we stayed at Casa Aya en Centro, where we were very happy as well. It didn't have the bells and whistles that the Granada place did but it was very clean, comfortable, spacious, had good water pressure, and again was in a wonderful location both for walking and for getting buses or taxis. The staff were immediately responsive and very helpful when I had a couple questions about how to work things in the apartment, including being very patient and encouraging with my intermediate Spanish 🙂.

In Toledo we stayed at Hotel Santa Isabel, which was a wonderful recommendation - again, we were very happy here. Such wonderful views, both from our room and the rooftop! And again, a charming building, spacious room (we did treat ourselves to the superior room with cathedral view), clean, comfortable, and centrally located.

Finally, in Madrid we stayed at Amor de Dios 17. This was just fine for just 1 night, tho' if you're looking to stay somewhere for multiple nights, I think our particular apartment would be a bit more comfortable for younger folks (feel free to ask if you want to know more); I didn't see any of the other apartments so don't know if they're all the same.

Ok, I'll come back later to share some highlights of what we enjoyed in each place, and hopefully some pictures!

Hi go_laura,
Really enjoying your feedback so far, and eagerly waiting the next installment. It's really interesting that Granada stole your heart more than Sevilla, smaller, more of a mountain city and you loved your apartment. I've taken notes!

Thanks for sharing this, go_laura. I also look forward to reading more.

Laura,
I’m so happy, too, that you had a wonderful trip! And I agree, it’s interesting that Sevilla didn’t excite you as much as the other cities. I wonder if it’s due to expectations- I know I’m one who fell head over heels in love with Sevilla and sing its praises loudly. We enjoyed all the cities, too, but my heart remains in Sevilla😉 And, of course, the experience with the apartment might’ve affected your feelings to some extent.

I’m also pleased that you also enjoyed Hotel Santa Isabel in Toledo. I know we really liked it, too (and of course, I found it in Maribel’s guides and knew it would be just right for us).

go_laura,
Look what you've done! The Aljibe Rodrigo del Campo apartments are available for us for Semana Santa in March, and I'm very tempted to spring for the one bedroom. (This would be after Sevilla). They receive a 9.7 "exceptional" on booking.com and look absolutely lovely!! I like staying in the Realejo neighborhood, as it has a real neighborhood feel to me.

We've stayed in the upper Realejo at the lovely B&B Carmen de la Alcubilla del Caracol in La Torre suite with balcony overlooking the city, which we've loved (but lots of climbing, pretty steep), but during Holy Week it would be really nice to stay closer to the center with the shorter daylight hours, and for tapas hopping, of course!

So glad you loved your stay there. Have been wondering about your Atocha transfer from AVE to Toledo AVANT. How did it go?

Looking forward to this. We are leaving the end of February for three weeks in the same area.

I’ve been following your planning, so happy to see you’ve started your report!
I’m looking forward to your impressions.

I am so excited to see your TR!!! I followed along on your planning thread and happy to hear you had a great time. It's too bad you weren't feeling well and didn't make it to Malaga. And that's too bad about the Seville apartment. I can see how that would affect your opinion of Seville. And as you say, you do prefer smaller cities. Personally, I don't think the amount of time you spent in each place is too much. Maybe for some people, but not for me. We love to see the major sites, but we also like to visit hidden gems, and we love to wander and explore different neighborhoods, stop for drinks, pop into some shops. I remember when we visited Andalucia, Madrid, and Toledo (all on the same trip) I wish we had an extra night in each place.

Looking forward to more of your report and photos! I love to hear other people's opinions and perspectives on places I have visited.

Really looking forward to your observations too, as we are planning 5 nights Seville and 2 in Cordoba…have been wondering if I should change that to 3 nights Cordoba and 4 in Seville. Our first half day and night in Cordoba is Monday, which could limit what we can see that day. Plus having traveled from Granada…We tend to also like smaller cities.

The Mezquita is open 7 days a week so you can visit the Mezquita on Monday and then explore the Juderia. Then the next day visit the Alcazar and Palacio de Viana if those sites are of interest to you.

What kind of a traveler are you? Do you like to see everything, explore neighborhoods, travel slow or fast? We had 4 nights in Seville but I wish we had an extra night. We had 2 nights in Cordoba (1.5 days like you) but I wish we had an extra night there, too. That is always the case. Never enough time. However, we did see all the sites we wanted to see in Cordoba. If it were me, I would stay with 5 nights in Seville and 2 nights in Cordoba. But, honestly, you can't go wrong with changing to 4 in Seville and 3 in Cordoba. Keep in mind that Seville is a larger city so there are more interesting sites in Seville and more neighborhoods to explore.

Wow, I'm honored by all this encouragement to continue, thank you, all! I'm feeling a little "ut-oh" now tho' because I know that after Sevilla I didn't take good notes this trip, (when having down time, was involved with some zooming with my soon-to-have-surgery sil and her doctors, and emailing my 90-yr old mother). But hopefully what I piece together from the combination of memories, pictures, and receipts will be interesting or useful in some way.

So, Sevilla! First, food: We gave up fairly quickly on trying to get to particularly recommended places, after finding ourselves either hungry at the wrong time when it was too late and they were already very crowded, or just being in the midst of being out and about and not feeling like consulting with our phones. But we managed to find ourselves some wonderful tapas, food and baked goods anyway 🙂. Our very first night, when wherever we originally set out to go didn't work out for some reason I no longer remember, we loved the tapas we had at La Gorda de la Magdalena on Calle San Pablo. Another day, we especially loved the pastries we had from Confiteria Rufiño just off the Plaza de Cuba; we happened on it while waiting for a bus, and were very glad we did (Maribel, it didn't rival Motteau, but it was very, very good!). We also had a delicious dinner 1 night at La Santa on Calle Regina 4 - for this I did consult my phone, because we had just been on Las Setas, it was late and we were tired and hungry, but I was guessing due to the location there might be a lot of not-great places to be avoided. I was glad I did that, because indeed I saw a lot of the places right in front of us had ratings under 3 of 5 (!), but then saw La Santa which was literally just a few steps farther, had 4.7. Deserved! I forget most of the specifics of what we had tho' do remember enjoying the prawn, basil and potato salad. A few other places where I also don't recall specifics but remember enjoying, were tapas for lunch at Agustin and Co. Bar (the 1 day we had a little rain so we were ducking in right after getting our Catedral tix and seeing the Iglesia Colegial del Divino Salvador), another day a late breakfast at the Mercado de Triana, and on our last night, dinner/tapas at Bar Patronas right around the corner from where we were staying. Other places sprinkled in, of course, but those are the ones that felt worth mentioning. We did some nosh-before-going-out, and snacking, back at our apartment as well.

Sightseeing highlights in Sevilla: our first full day which was a Wed., after sleeping in, doing a little food shopping, etc. we did the touristy hop-on hop-off bus, both to get the lay of the land, and because dh's hip replacements and my groin issue, were both a little aggravated from the plane ride. We were actually quite pleased with it, and saw some parts of the city that we probably otherwise wouldn't have gotten to. This was the day, tho', that we "hopped off" for Plaza España and Parque Maria Luisa, only to find the park closed (as it remained our entire stay); probably the Plaza was open but we didn't figure out til the next day, that you didn't need to go thru the park to get in! Felt pretty foolish about that. Anyway, since we'd been hoping for the park, we were craving being amongst trees so took a little rest in the lovely Jardines del Prado across the street. After which we decided to walk across the Puente de los Remedios since we were so close. We stopped somewhere (?) for a quick bite of tortilla and then very much enjoyed walking down Calle Asunción which by then was starting to be lively, to get back to Plaza de Cuba to pick up our bus again (only after finding above mentioned Confiteria Rufiño!). By the time our bus was back to its beginning at Plaza de Duque, having given us another nice little rest, we knew we were just a 5 minute walk from Las Setas, and decided to go there. We got tickets to walk up on it, and really enjoyed seeing the nighttime views of the city!

Ok, I was determined to report on our whole stay in Sevilla in just a paragraph, and instead that was just Day 1 lol. Tho, I think the rest can be said in just a sentence or 2, since our visits were to places on which much is said in other threads and in guidebooks. Over the next 3 days, we visited the incredible Alcazar (but sadly the gardens were closed, due to the same storms that had happened prior to our arrival and caused Parque Maria Luisa to be closed) and Catedral (really appreciated Maribel's tip for getting tix, what a line we got to skip!); went (for real this time) back to the Plaza España and enjoyed seeing flamenco there; we love markets so enjoyed going to the Mercado de Triana and looking at a couple of the ceramics shops a few blocks away; wandered the Barrio Santa Cruz; and very much enjoyed seeing flamenco at the Tablao Alvarez Quintero, followed by wandering the Plaza Nueva and surrounding streets. In the Plaza Nueva we came upon the Ferria de Libros, which as a complete book addict, was fun!

I enjoyed all of the above but will say that I was underwhelmed by Barrio Santa Cruz. I enjoyed the lovely little plazas there like Doña Elvira and another the name of which I'm blanking on, but honestly, there's something odd to me about a "Jewish quarter" filled with tourist shops and little to no mention of the history of the expulsion of the Jews from Spain (unless I just missed it). From reading, it sounds like I might have enjoyed this area more a decade ago before it got so crowded.

And that's our time in Sevilla in a nutshell! I just tried to attach pictures but my computer said no. Will try to figure that out later. Granada, Cordoba, Toledo and 1-day in Madrid, to come...

Also...Maribel, I hesitate to recommend to you who are so much more traveled and experienced than I am, but I did love that Aljibe Rodrigo! It's on a hill but not the multiple, steep hills - no balcony, but a lovely view from both the bedroom and living room windows. And I'll jump ahead a moment to tell you that the transfer in Atocha was easy as could be, so I was glad we risked the earlier ticket to Toledo.

Natylou, I can't know of course what would be best for you, but if it were me I'd do 4 in Sevilla and 3 in Córdoba. I really enjoyed Córdoba and found myself thinking it's an underrated city. But Karenwoo says it well when she says it depends what type of traveler you are. I know many people here, would prefer the 5 nights in Sevilla.

natylou,
As KarenWoo says, it depends on where your interests lie.

Sevilla has an amazing number of interesting sights---
-the stunning Reales Alcázares, whose colors, having been constructed in 1308, much later, are much more vivid than those of the Alhambra, & its lovely gardens
-the wonderful Museum of Fine Arts, if you have any interest in Spanish Baroque (Zurbarán, Murillo, Velázquez, Valdés Leal),
-more Baroque masterpieces in the Centro Velázquez inside the Hospital de los Venerables
-beautiful churches such as the Baroque masterpiece, Iglesia Colegio de El Salvador, the 3rd largest Cathedral in the world and its former minaret, La Giralda,
-three palace-museums, the Palacio de Dueñas (former home of the Duchess of Alba and a beauty), the Casa de Pilatos (filled with amazing tile work) and the Palacio de Lebrija
-a vibrant indoor market, the Mercado de Triana, where one can take cooking classes or just nosh
-the Triana quarter, across the Puente Isabel II across the Guadalquivir with its two, lovely small churches very important during Holy Week and some ceramic workshops
-the Plaza de España and María Luisa Park (with a Sunday outdoor handicrafts market)--both for me can take up an entire Sunday morning
-a performing arts center, the Teatro de la Maestranza, that may have a performance (ballet, flamenco, symphony, etc) during your stay
-20 some flamenco tablaos from which to choose, if you like that art form
-Las Setas, the largest wooden structure in the world with an evening sounds and lights show on the Plaza de la Encarnación and its underground Antiquarium ruins
-getting lost in the tiny streets of the Judería neighborhood, some of which are too narrow even for carriages to enter
-the Basílica of La Macarena, whose statue of the Virgin is profoundly venerated during Holy Week
-fantastic tapas bars galore!

There are just more sights to see in Sevilla but all of the above may not be of interest.

Thank you KarenWoo. I think we are similar travelers to you. Since 4 years of staying at home (and aging), I am trying to find my travel mojo again. We are not loving the crowded places which are even more crowded since Covid (Dubrovnik for example) and I will be fast approaching 70 by the time of our trip to Spain, so we don't have as much energy as we used to have.

Maribel, thanks for that list of things to do and see, all of which sound very interesting to me. DH on the other hand likes to intersperse sights with down time, people watching, late afternoon aperitivi, and phone time. I find cities a bit frustrating for that reason. It seems to me a shame when in a place filled with treasures to wander around aimlessly. I am a planner.

So, taking all that into consideration, I am trying to get my feet under me in this new travel world. Sorry for hijacking, OP, but I will be interested to hear what you enjoyed about Cordoba.

And yes, I agree with you that the best laid plans for restaurants often go astray unless one plans one's itinerary around where and when to eat.

About crowded places, natylou,
I don´t remember what dates you have planned for your Andalusian trip, but if you stay in Sevilla in the Santa Cruz quarter, the streets will be very crowded, especially in the area around the Cathedral. There really isn´t an off season in Sevilla anymore. I´ve been in February, March, November and it´s busy all the time, especially in that area, in Santa Cruz, where there are now more tourist beds than Sevilla residents. That´s why we now stay in the area around the Plaza de la Encarnación, near Las Setas, which has a more neighborhood feel or in the less tourist trodden El Arenal, closer to the Guadalquivir. Just some thoughts...

In Córdoba during the day, you´ll find the same situation with tourist saturation in the Judería around the Mezquita-Cathedral, but the beauty of an overnight or two in Córdoba is that the day trippers leave and you have the city far more to yourselves for wandering.
The less crowded place to stay would be across the Roman bridge, in the Casas de la Judería near the Alcázar or near the Roman temple (if your budget allows for the Hospes Palacio del Bailío) or on the Plaza de las Tendillas at the H10 Palacio Colomera, which is the nerve center of the modern city. Or an airbnb in one of those less busy areas, like Casa Aya, where go_laura stayed in "Centro", just south of the Plaza de las Tendillas. These are places that those who come to the city on a day trip don´t have time to visit.

Maribel, we will be in Cordoba April 8 and 9, moving on to Seville on April 10, and flying out on the 15th.
In Cordoba, I have booked the H10 Palacio Colomera, and in Seville, H10 Casa de la Plata.
So, we won't be there during Holy Week, but I think my plan to avoid crowds by traveling in April was a bit flawed. Southern Spain may be the most busy place to travel in April. But I have every intention of enjoying every minute, with some appropriate planning.

natylou,
We'll be in Córboda at the H10 Palacio Colomera right before Holy Week and then will move on to Sevilla on Saturday before Palm Sunday. We usually stay in Sevilla at the H10 Casa de la Plata (outside of Holy Week), which is a truly lovely hotel. Hope you enjoy them both!

Go_Laura, I agree that Cordoba is an underrated city. I think it's lovely and so very interesting. The Mezquita is amazing, of course, but there is more to Cordoba than just the Mezquita. I always advise people to spend a night or two in Cordoba if they have the time. It's a much better experience than seeing Cordoba as a daytrip from Seville, which is what many people do. Once the daytrippers have left, Cordoba is much quieter and so pretty and magical with the illuminated Mezquita. I remember walking across the Roman Bridge at night and looking back to see the glowing Mezquita. Magical!

Natylou, Maribel does an excellent job listing all the interesting places in Seville. The only other things I would add is to take a carriage ride around Seville. Also, have lunch or dinner at the Mercado Barranca in addition to Mercado Triana. We did both.

In Cordoba we stayed at the Las Casas de la Juderia, and that was one of our favorite accommodations, if not our favorite.

I forgot the carriage ride, about 40-45 minutes in length (more or less; ime some drivers can be a bit "stingy" about the length), that one can catch in front of the cathedral, where you'll see them at almost any time of day. I don't know the current price, but it appears still to be "negotiable". Carriages will hold up to 5 people.

The Mercado de la Lonja del Barranco is a gourmet food court at the river's edge, an iron and glass design built in 1883, designed by Eiffel (former fish market) with large outdoor terrace. Inside it's similar in style to the Mercado Victoria in Córdoba and somewhat less busy than Madrid's Mercado de San Miguel. it has high tables where one can enjoy the food chosen from the different stands.
It's very popular because of the varied food options with 20 different stands selling from croquettes to empanadas to rice dishes to nachos, burritos, Japanese--something for every taste. The large Soho terrace gathers a young crowd at night on weekends with music, cocktails and hookah rentals, It's open daily from noon until 1 am so handy for those who want to grab something to eat outside of the customary Spanish meal hours.

https://mercadolonjabarranco.com

Thought I'd try again to add some pictures before continuing with the writing...hopefully it works this time. These are all from Sevilla. I forgot to mention, after our first day (which really wasn't too bad either, just a bit of rain at times), we were very lucky with weather!!












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