Spain · Itinerary · Updated September 2026
10 days in Spain: Madrid, Toledo and Andalusia by train
Ten days is enough for Madrid and Andalusia done properly, or for four Spanish cities done at a jog. This route picks the first, which means leaving Catalonia out entirely. Fares and fees checked September 2026.
Dmitry Dzhus from London / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
Length
10 days
Budget
€1,745 / $2,023
per person, mid-range
Best season
Apr–Jun, Sep–Oct
Andalusia hits 40°C in July and August
Stops
6
no Barcelona, no bed tax
The route
Three nights in Madrid with Toledo as a day trip, one in Córdoba, three in Seville and two in Granada. Fly into Madrid, out of Málaga.
Day by day
Days 1–2 · Madrid
Two days, and the Prado free in its last two hours
The Prado is €15 and **free for the final two hours of every day**, which is also when the tour groups have gone. Take the late slot deliberately rather than as a saving. The Reina Sofía gets an afternoon, the Retiro an evening. Madrid does not eat before nine and does not think this is unusual, so plan the first night around a late table rather than against one.
Sleep: Malasaña or Lavapiés for the food; Sol if you would rather walk everywhere.
Day 3 · Toledo
Thirty-four minutes, and no bag to move
The Avant from Atocha takes thirty-four minutes, which makes Toledo closer to Madrid than the airport is. A walled city on a granite spur with the Tagus wrapped around three sides of it, and eight hundred years of Muslim, Jewish and Christian building stacked into one square kilometre. On a ten-day trip its great virtue is that it costs no packing: you are back in the same Madrid bed by ten.
Sleep: Back in Madrid, the third night in the same room.
Day 4 · Córdoba
One night, bought for a single free hour
An hour and forty minutes from Madrid on the AVE, with departures every thirty to sixty minutes. The Mezquita is €15, but **free Monday to Saturday from 08:30 to 09:30**, and in that hour the forest of red-and-white arches is nearly empty. That hour is why this is an overnight rather than a stop between trains: you cannot reach 08:30 in Córdoba from a bed in Seville.
Sleep: In the Judería, inside the old walls and five minutes from the doors.
Days 5–7 · Seville
Fifty-two minutes south, and the longest stay of the trip
The fastest AVE from Córdoba is fifty-two minutes. The Real Alcázar is €15.50 and still a working royal residence, which is why its upper floor can close without notice. Three nights covers the Alcázar, the cathedral and the Giralda, the Plaza de España, Triana across the river, and one evening that is nothing but a slow crawl through Santa Cruz. **Andalusia charges no tourist tax**, so the beds cost what they said they would.
Sleep: Santa Cruz for the lanes, Triana for the food and half the noise.
Days 8–9 · Granada
Two nights, which means the Alhambra slot has to fall on day nine
Seville to Granada is 2h45–2h52 and **there are only four trains a day**. Take a morning one: day eight is then an afternoon in the Albaicín and sunset at the Mirador de San Nicolás, and day nine is the Alhambra entire, €22.27 for a timed Nasrid Palaces slot, the Generalife and the Alcazaba. At two nights those two days are not interchangeable, so book the Alhambra for the second.
Sleep: The Albaicín, uphill and worth it, or Realejo for flatter streets.
Day 10 · Málaga, and out
The bus that makes the flight cheaper
Granada's own airport is small and routes almost everything through Madrid or Barcelona. Málaga is an hour and a half by bus and flies direct across Europe, which is what makes the open jaw work: in to Madrid, out of Málaga, nothing retraced. Book the flights that way round before you book anything else except the Alhambra.
Sleep: Nowhere. This is the day you leave.
Best things to do on this route
If you cut the trip short, these are the ones to keep.
- 01
The free hour at the Mezquita
Monday to Saturday, 08:30 to 09:30, no ticket. Hundreds of striped arches and almost nobody under them. The best hour on this route, and it costs nothing.
- 02
The Nasrid Palaces, booked months ahead
€22.27 and timed. On a two-night Granada stop it has to be day nine, which makes it the fixed point the rest of the trip is built around.
- 03
The Prado in its last two hours
Free every day before closing, and emptier then than at any point when it is not. Velázquez and Goya without a shoulder in the way.
- 04
Toledo, thirty-four minutes from Atocha
A walled city above the Tagus that costs you a train ticket and no packing at all.
- 05
The Plaza de España in Seville
A half-kilometre curve of tiled brick and canal built for the 1929 exposition. Free, and the best twenty minutes in the city.
Where to stay
Neighbourhoods rather than specific hotels. Prices move, areas don't.
Madrid: Malasaña or Lavapiés
Where Madrid actually eats. Central enough to walk to the Prado, and the first three nights in one room set the tone for a trip with only three moves in it.
Córdoba: the Judería
Inside the walls, five minutes from the Mezquita doors, and the cheapest bed on the route. You are here for one morning; sleep next to it.
Seville: Triana
Across the river from the monuments, which is why it costs less and sounds better. Ten minutes on foot to the cathedral.
Granada: the Albaicín
Whitewashed lanes above the city with the Alhambra opposite. Steep, cobbled, and no use at all with a wheeled suitcase.
What it cost
Per person, 10 days. International flights not included.
| Category | Cost |
|---|---|
| Accommodation: 9 nights | €835 / $968 |
| Food and drink | €550 / $638 |
| Activities and entry fees | €120 / $139 |
| Trains: four legs, booked early | €110 / $128 |
| Local transport, the Málaga bus and transfers | €85 / $99 |
| SIM, laundry, everything else | €45 / $52 |
| Total | €1,745 / $2,023 |
Converted at €1 = $1.1593, checked 2 September 2026. About €175 a day, which is below the 14-day route's €182, and the reason is a line that is missing rather than one that is smaller. **There is no tourist-tax row**, because Madrid charges none and Andalusia charges none. Barcelona would have added €9.50 to €12.00 per person per night on top of a dearer bed.
Getting around
Book the Alhambra first, and for day nine
Sales open three months ahead and peak-season general admission is gone one to two months before the date. With only two nights in Granada the slot cannot float: it has to be the second day, because the first is consumed by a nearly three-hour train. Get the ticket, then build the flights around it.
Fly in to Madrid, out of Málaga
An open jaw costs little more than a return and saves a whole day of backtracking. Granada's airport is small and routes through Madrid or Barcelona anyway; Málaga is ninety minutes by bus and flies direct across Europe.
Seville to Granada runs four times a day
2h45 to 2h52, and only four departures. Much the thinnest service on this route, and the one leg where missing a train costs you an afternoon of a two-night stop. Book it the moment the Alhambra slot is confirmed.
About the Madrid–Seville line
Two high-speed trains collided near Adamuz on the Madrid–Seville line on 18 January 2026. The line reopened on 17 February and the Málaga branch on 27 April; services have run to timetable since, and investigators traced the cause to a fractured rail from a bad weld. It is the question anyone researching Spanish rail this year ends up asking, and the answer is that the line is open and running normally.
Packing notes
The things that are annoying to find locally, or that people forget.
- Shoes you can climb in. The Albaicín is cobbled and near-vertical, and Toledo is a granite spur.
- An Alhambra ticket for day nine, bought months ago.
- A refillable bottle. Andalusian street fountains are drinkable and August is not survivable without one.
- A light layer for Granada. It sits at 700m under the Sierra Nevada and the evenings drop hard.
- Cards work everywhere; carry €20 in coins for lockers and the odd village bar.
- A soft bag rather than a hard case if you are sleeping in the Albaicín. There are steps.
Why Barcelona is not on this list
Because at ten days it is not a stop, it is a second trip wearing the first one’s clothes.
Barcelona is in the far north-east. Reaching it from anywhere on this route is two and a half hours on the AVE, and doing it properly means three nights. Take those from a ten-day trip and Andalusia is down to a night in Seville and a rushed Alhambra. The version where you have been to four cities and remember airports.
It is also the only expensive part of Spain that got more expensive this year. Barcelona doubled its city surcharge on 1 April 2026: €5 per person per night on top of the Catalan levy, which brings the total to between €9.50 and €12.00 a night. Madrid charges nothing. Andalusia charges nothing.
Barcelona is a superb long weekend with its own cheap flights. Give it those, and give these ten days to the half of Spain that actually joins up.
What the missing four days cost
Against the 14-day route, this one loses Barcelona and one night in Granada. Nothing else changed: same cities, same order, same trains.
The Granada night is the one that stings. Three nights there buys the Alpujarras. The road up into the mountains behind the city, which is the part people describe when they get home. Two nights buys the Alhambra and the Albaicín, which is the part they came for. That is a fair trade at ten days and a poor one at fourteen, which is why the longer route spends the night.
The two fixed points
Everything else here can be moved. These cannot:
The Alhambra slot must fall on day nine. Two nights in Granada, with the first afternoon eaten by a three-hour train, leaves exactly one full day. Book the ticket for it, months ahead, before the flights exist.
Córdoba must be an overnight. The free hour at the Mezquita runs 08:30 to 09:30, Monday to Saturday. There is no train that gets you from Seville into Córdoba by half past eight and no version of this trip where the hour is worth skipping. It is the cheapest bed of the nine nights and it buys the best hour of the ten days.