Spain · Itinerary · Updated September 2026
5 days in Spain: Seville, Córdoba and the Alhambra
Five days is two cities. The trick is that the third one sits on the line between them, so you can have it for the price of a day rather than a night. Fares and fees checked September 2026.
Diliff / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
Length
5 days
Budget
€810 / $939
per person, mid-range
Best season
Apr–Jun, Sep–Oct
Andalusia hits 40°C in July and August
Stops
4
2 beds, 3 cities
The route
Two nights in Seville, a day in Córdoba on the way through, and two nights in Granada. Fly into Seville, out of Málaga.
Day by day
Days 1–2 · Seville
Two nights, and the Alcázar at opening
The Real Alcázar is €15.50 and still a working royal residence, which is why its upper floor can shut without notice. Take the first slot of the day and see it before anything else. Two nights is enough for the Alcázar, the cathedral and the Giralda, the Plaza de España and an evening in Triana, provided you do not also try to fit a flamenco show and a river cruise around them. **Andalusia charges no tourist tax.**
Sleep: Santa Cruz, for once. At two nights, walking distance beats value.
Day 3 · Córdoba
Fifty-two minutes there, an hour and three-quarters onward
Check out, take the early AVE, fifty-two minutes, and leave the bags in the station lockers. The Mezquita is €15 today rather than free, because the free hour runs 08:30 to 09:30 and belongs to people who slept here. Give it two hours, eat in the Judería, and take the afternoon train on to Granada: 1h44 direct, but **only about one departure every four hours**, so pick it before you leave Seville.
Sleep: Granada tonight. The bags have moved once and you have seen a third city.
Day 4 · Granada
The one full day, and it belongs to the Alhambra
€22.27 covers a timed Nasrid Palaces slot, the Generalife and the Alcazaba, and it is most of a day if you let it be. The evening is the Albaicín on foot and sunset from the Mirador de San Nicolás, which looks straight back at what you spent the morning inside. On a five-day trip this is the only day with nothing else competing for it, so the Alhambra slot must fall here.
Sleep: Realejo or near Plaza Nueva. Flatter than the Albaicín, and you are leaving early.
Day 5 · Málaga, and out
Ninety minutes to a real airport
ALSA runs about forty buses a day to Málaga; direct services take an hour and a quarter to an hour and a half, the ones that stop everywhere take two and a half. Book a direct one. Málaga flies across Europe without connecting, which is the only reason five days in Andalusia is not four days and a wasted afternoon.
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 Nasrid Palaces on day four
€22.27 and timed. With one full day in Granada, this is not a highlight so much as the fixed point everything else is arranged around.
- 02
The Real Alcázar at opening
€15.50 for a palace the Spanish crown still uses. First slot of the day, before the Seville heat and the queue arrive together.
- 03
The Mezquita in two hours
€15 without the overnight, and still worth every minute. Hundreds of red-and-white arches receding in every direction.
- 04
The Albaicín at sunset
The Mirador de San Nicolás looks across at the Alhambra with the Sierra Nevada behind it. Free, and the right way to end the one full day.
- 05
Station lockers in Córdoba
The small logistical trick the whole itinerary turns on: a third city for the cost of a day, with the luggage left behind the barrier.
Where to stay
Neighbourhoods rather than specific hotels. Prices move, areas don't.
Seville: Santa Cruz
Inside the old quarter, on the Alcázar's doorstep, and loud until late. At two nights the walking distance is worth more than the quiet.
Seville: Triana
Across the river, cheaper and better for eating, ten minutes on foot to the cathedral. Take it if the flight lands late and day one is short.
Granada: Realejo or Plaza Nueva
Flat, central and close to the Alhambra buses. Better than the Albaicín here, because you arrive with luggage and leave before breakfast.
What it cost
Per person, 5 days. International flights not included.
| Category | Cost |
|---|---|
| Accommodation: 4 nights | €360 / $417 |
| Food and drink | €275 / $319 |
| Activities and entry fees | €60 / $70 |
| Local transport, the Málaga bus and lockers | €50 / $58 |
| Trains: two legs | €40 / $46 |
| SIM, laundry, everything else | €25 / $29 |
| Total | €810 / $939 |
Converted at €1 = $1.1593, checked 2 September 2026. About €162 a day. Almost exactly the 7-day route's €160, and well under the 14-day's €182. Length is not what makes a Spanish trip expensive here; Barcelona is. The one line that goes up rather than down is the Mezquita, which costs €15 on this itinerary and nothing on the routes that sleep in Córdoba.
Getting around
Book the Alhambra first, and for day four
Sales open three months ahead and peak-season general admission is gone one to two months before the date. Five days contains exactly one full day in Granada. If the slot you are offered falls on any other day, move the flights rather than the itinerary. There is nothing else to move.
Pick the Córdoba–Granada train before you leave Seville
1h44 direct, but roughly one departure every four hours. Miss the afternoon train and the gap is most of a day on a trip that has five. Look up the actual times the night before, and size the Mezquita visit to fit the train rather than the other way round.
Fly in to Seville, out of Málaga
A return into one airport costs a whole day of backtracking, which is a fifth of this trip. The open jaw is usually within a few euros of the return fare and it is the single highest-value booking decision here.
Lockers, not a hotel change
Córdoba's station has left luggage. Using it is what turns a three-city week into a three-city long weekend: the bags move once, from Seville to Granada, and Córdoba happens in between them.
Packing notes
The things that are annoying to find locally, or that people forget.
- An Alhambra ticket for day four, bought months ago.
- A bag you can leave in a locker and walk away from for four hours.
- Shoes you can climb in. The Albaicín is cobbled and near-vertical.
- A refillable bottle. Andalusian street fountains are drinkable and August is not survivable without one.
- A light layer for Granada; it sits at 700m and the evenings drop hard.
- Cards work everywhere; carry €20 in coins for the lockers themselves.
Why Córdoba is a day and not a night
On the 7-day route Córdoba gets an overnight, and the reason is a single hour: the Mezquita is free from 08:30 to 09:30, Monday to Saturday, and no train from Seville arrives in time to use it.
Five days cannot afford that night. So this itinerary does the honest thing and pays the €15.
What you lose is not really the money. It is the empty building. At half past eight the hypostyle hall is hundreds of columns receding in every direction with nobody in the way, and by midday you are looking at the backs of people’s heads. It is still one of the great interiors in Europe at midday. It is just not the same room.
What you gain is a third city on a trip that could only carry two. Córdoba sits directly on the line from Seville to Granada. Skipping it means riding through it.
The whole plan is one locker
Two beds in five days is the constraint everything else follows from. Seville for two nights, Granada for two, and the luggage moves exactly once, on day three, with a four-hour pause in the middle of the journey.
That pause is Córdoba. Left luggage at the station, two hours in the Mezquita, lunch in the Judería, afternoon train onward. No check-in, no check-out, no third hotel, and a city most five-day itineraries leave out because they think of it as a stop rather than as the middle of a journey they were making anyway.
What five days cannot do
It cannot do Madrid, and it certainly cannot do Barcelona. That is a different flight and a different trip.
It cannot give Granada a second full day, which is what the Alpujarras and the Sacromonte caves would need.
And it cannot absorb a mistake. There is one full day in Granada and the Alhambra has to be on it; there is one train onward from Córdoba each afternoon and the Mezquita visit has to fit it. Both are fine when booked in the right order, months apart: the Alhambra ticket first, the flights second, the Córdoba train last.