Next April I’m traveling to Spain with my GF, the plan is, meet in Madrid (I’ll be coming back from my hometown in Uruguay, she’ll be coming from Bangkok), perhaps spend a day there resting and then head down South to Andalusia for a grand total of twelve days.
We want to visit three cities, at least, Cordoba, Granada and Sevilla, which can be done by train but I edging towards renting a car. A friend of mine warned me that while driving is OK parking is not, but that’s based on his experience going to Barcelona so I don’t know if it’s applicable. The area between the cities we plan to hit seems to have many interesting places to stop along the way (or a bit out of the way FWIW), La Mancha, the Sierra Nevada and Sierra Morena mountains, the Mediterranean coast is about one hour away from Granada.
If we drive I’m thinking perhaps we could go South West from Madrid, stop in Merida then South to Sevilla. From there mostly Eastwards to Cordoba and Granada and then head up North with a stop at Toledo before Madrid. What I’m wondering is if it’s worth it to drive or is it better to go by train for all this, suggestions?
As I am frequently visting since 15 years the side of my family that resides in the Andalucia region:
[ul]
[li]Barcelona is as similar to the large cities of the Andalucia region, so yes parking is like most European central cities limited, although if you are budgeting to put your car in a car park, walk, it is not a problem[/li][li] the RENFE high speed rail is a comfortable and fast way to get from Madrid to Seville or Corduba and avoiding a boring drive along the autoroute[/li][li] the autocar network for the intercity buses is comfortable and high standard, so a quite reasonable choice for the displacements between the major cities [/li] the rental car is most useful for the flexability for the rural / mountain town visits, could be rented for specific segments perhaps only - might be more cost effective if there is any cost concerns.[/ul]
+1 to what Ramira said: the Madrid-Córdoba-Seville AVEs are considered week-commuter trains and, when going from one station to the next in the line, day-commute trains. Very convenient.
I would suggest taking the train for a day or two in Toledo (commuter train), return to Madrid and take the AVE to Córdoba, do Córdoba, train again to Seville, and then rent a car to head east from Seville. For Granada, remember that you need to book the Alhambra in advance.
If you take the say trip to Medina Azahara from Córdoba, you can buy water right outside. April is likely to have highs over 30ºC already both in Córdoba and Seville; watch out because it could hit 36+. Granada isn’t so hot, temperature-wise.
La Mancha isn’t a town, it’s a whole region, so saying you want to see it is kind of… fuzzy. What do you want to see there, aside from Toledo? Ciudad Real, the windmills route…?
Easter in Sevilla Feria D abril, they call it. Here’s a little clip I made last time we were there, of families with kids leaving the festival park at dusk. All the dresses! Spring festival Sevilla Spain 2009 - YouTube
The cathedral and the palace Alcazar in Sevilla. Alcazar and Italica were sites where Game of Thrones was filmed.
Feria de Abril; April’s Fair. Originally a horse fair, the casetas (the tents) are divided into private (invitation only) and public. There are also fairgrounds attractions (Ferris wheel, teacups, stuff like that). Easter and the Feria are completely different celebrations, they should never take place at the same time, the Feria usually being held after Easter. Aaaaaand I just checked, and this year the Fair will be in May. May 4th to 11th. What can I say, the name isn’t expected to necessarily be accurate.
Don’t drink the water from the Río Tinto: it’s that color because of the amount of heavy metals, including mercury.
The village of Jerez ( all sand and a few tavernas with horse stands in front. It’s basically a sandy village, like a old Western village but then spread out over a wider area. It only comes alive during the annual horse festival. But to American eyes it is “just a western town”. To European eyes, it is WEIRD. https://www.spain.info/en/reportajes/jerez_la_tradicion_del_caballo.html
And the Klu Klux Klan costumes of the various catholic brotherhoods, worn during the solemns church processions in the Easter Festival of Sevilla. They’re the originals, the KKK stole their costume. Capirote - Wikipedia
Absolutely ! The water, especially near the source, is so heavily contaminated with an astonishing array of metal salts that NASA even studied bacterial life in the source to see how extraterestial life might do under those circumstances. The big river just has a reddish hue, but the little streams inland are blood red and run in sulphurous yellow banks. Rio Tinto (river) - Wikipedia
Capirotes are worn all through Spain and Portugal. And kindly refrain from putting them in the same sentence with the KKK.
Jerez de la Frontera is European. So’s Jerez de los Caballeros (also worth a visit but not so much from someone coming from the other end of the globe), but the one with the famous horses and the sherry is the one de la Frontera.
Been to Granada and Seville on separate city breaks in the last few months.
Yes you do need to book the Alhambra (Granada) in advance. We were told it has to be via the website. We turned up on spec, and Trep jr was able to book on the spot via smartphone; we had to wait an hour or so but we got in same day. It was November, and we got lucky. Other stuff they don’t tell you: You can’t take bags into the cathedral in Granada, and there wasn’t any way to check them into a cloakroom either. Lesser known site: San Juan de Dios is extraordinary and the tour takes you everywhere for (if I remember correctly) four Euro. A must if you like extreme bling churches and lots of bits of saints.
You may not have to book the Alcazar or catherdral (Seville) in the same way as the Alhambra, but you’ll struggle to get in if you don’t. Re the latter - there appear to be non-official sites where you can book a ticket (well, a barcode you can print out or have on your phone, which gets scanned on entry), but you’ll be charged an additional “booking fee” by the unofficial sites, so be careful.
Here’s a cultural difference between the two cities (and maybe Nava or Ramira can explain the why). It you want tapas in Seville, you go to a bar and order them (as you might expect). If you go to a bar in Granada and order a drink, they’ll bring you a tapa. If you order another drink they’ll bring you another, bigger tapa. We had an evening of disastrous overeating before we figured this out.
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PS: Ramira/Nava - Cordoba is next up - what’s the routine there?
We drove to it from the south coast and it was quite a climb up the mountain in the POS were were driving. Two other guys and I took a two day trip from Rota across Andalucia to Granada, then down to spend the night in Torremolinos, then back through Ronda to connect to our original route. Loved the small, whitewashed towns perched on the hillsides. That was in about 1981.
I don’t believe this has been mentioned yet, but Carmona is a nice visit, not far from Sevilla. We stayed in the parador there and it was a great experience.
ETA: I believe you would need a car for this side trip.
As I am frequently visting since 15 years the side of my family that resides in the Andalucia region:
[ul]
[li]Barcelona is as similar to the large cities of the Andalucia region, so yes parking is like most European central cities limited, although if you are budgeting to put your car in a car park, walk, it is not a problem[/li][li] the RENFE high speed rail is a comfortable and fast way to get from Madrid to Seville or Corduba and avoiding a boring drive along the autoroute[/li][li] the autocar network for the intercity buses is comfortable and high standard, so a quite reasonable choice for the displacements between the major cities [/li][li] the rental car is most useful for the flexability for the rural / mountain town visits, could be rented for specific segments perhaps only - might be more cost effective if there is any cost concerns.[/ul][/li][/QUOTE]
We were making plans last night and, so far, decided to go by train from Madrid to Cordoba and rent a car there. Which was a reminder for me to learn to drive manual because it’s twice as expensive to rent an automatic… ouch.
Yes, we found out there’s no way to go from Toledo to Cordoba directly, not even buses (WTF?), we were planning to stay a couple nights in Toledo but it looks like we’ll stay in Madrid and go to Toledo for a day trip instead, including an extra leg to go to Consuegra to see the castle and windmills there, does that sound feasible?
How far in advance do we need to book the Alhambra?
Temperature wise 30-36C is the everyday of the year norm where I live, so no problems there.
For La Mancha I was thinking of windmills, yes. One idea is like I said, to go to Consuegra as part of a day trip from Madrid to Toledo and the other would be to travel from Cordoba by car, Ciudad Real and beyond. On the map it’s a two hour drive to Consuegra and the other similar tows from Cordoba, so doesn’t look too bad.
Yes, Ronda is in the list of places to drive to from Seville. How’s the parking situation there, do you know?
For Roman ruins I wanted to go to Merida, but seems too much out of the way, so we may settle for Italica.
Rio Tinto looks good, I mean, besides being an ecological disaster zone it looks good, do they allow people to walk around?
We arrive to Madrid on the 11th, probably get to Cordoba by the 14th or 15th so we’ll probably miss all that.
That’s good information, thank you.
When you say no bags you mean absolutely no bags at all, i.e. my GF purse, camera bag, or things like backpacks and the like?
Reminds me one time in New Dehli, can’t remember the name of the place but they didn’t allow bags, cameras, phones or, and very specifically, USB flashdrives.
About Seville Cathedral, is it because they limit the number of people that can enter?
A couple years ago we went to Crete, online I read many people saying how scary the roads there where, but in the end driving around was what I enjoyed the most on the island. I quite like dramatic landscapes so I don’t mind the kind of roads that get one there.
If you are to drive in the mountains, and are just learning the manual, maybe not the best approach.
It is a small town perched on an outcrop, much of it built in the 17-19 centuries and before. Parking laughs at you.
But again if you budget for putting your car in one of the modern underground parkings on the edge of the “old town”, and either walk or take the carriages in, it is not a problem. this is the same advice for all of Andalucia.
Trying to street park is an annoying waste of time anywhere near the old cities. It has been a while since I have driven around, as I decided that autocars and Pidataxi the taxi app of the Spanish radiotaxi assocation (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=es.sooft.pidetaxi&hl=en) are less annoying than trying to park. I think perhaps 5 hours in the parkings is EUR 15 or something like that…but Nava knows better, I have not driven in Andalucia is a long time as I find driving annoying.
Agreed. I drive manual at home, but even I stump up for an automatic when driving somewhere like this - takes a hell of a lot of pressure out of the process. The memory of that drive to Ronda still gives me vertigo.
I was in southern Spain years ago, staying in Benalmadena-Costa. One day, a few of us went to Mijas. We could get public transit only so far, then we took a taxi to Mijas.
In Mijas, we bought some wine, some cheese, some bread, and some cold cuts. We climbed up on the trails above Mijas, to the quarries, and had a memorable picnic. Beautiful views of the sea far below, and a beautiful blue, sunshiny sky, accompanied by excellent food and wine. I’ll never forget that day.
We turned up to the cathedral in Granada with cabin bags (last stop before flying out) and it was a big no-no. I don’t know what you would be able to get away with.
Re: Seville cathedral - for tourists (unlike residents and people attending services) it’s a ticketed attraction just like the Alcazar. I think it was around ten euro to get in.
