Spain in 8 days: Alicante, Granada and Seville

This trip was built around one ticket. The Alhambra caps daily visitors and the Nasrid Palaces are sold with a timed entry slot that goes weeks - sometimes months - ahead. I got mine first and arranged everything else around it, which is the correct order of operations and not how I normally plan anything.

Eight days, three cities, no hire car.

The route

• Days 1–2: Alicante
• Days 3–5: Granada
• Days 6–8: Seville

Early October: high twenties, which in Andalusia counts as pleasant.

Days 1–2: Alicante

Day 1. Alicante is a working Mediterranean city that happens to have a beach, which is what makes it a good first stop rather than a resort. Up to the Castillo de Santa Bárbara on the rock above the town - there is a lift bored through the hill from the seafront, which I did not know about and discovered after walking up.

Evening on the Explanada de España under the wavy marble paving, and tapas in the old quarter behind the cathedral.

Day 2. The Mercado Central in the morning, which is where the town buys its fish. Then the tram up the coast to El Campello for the afternoon - twenty minutes, coastal the whole way, and a quieter beach at the end of it.

An observation that took me a day to make: the siesta is mostly a rural and small-town tradition now. Shops close in the afternoon; offices largely do not. But dinner still does not begin before nine.

Days 3–5: Granada

Day 3. Bus from Alicante, about five hours through country that goes from citrus to olive to bare rock. Granada sits under the Sierra Nevada and you can see snow from the street in winter.

Evening in the Albaicín, the old Moorish quarter of narrow white lanes on the hill facing the Alhambra. The Mirador de San Nicolás at sunset is famous, crowded and still worth it.

Day 4. The Alhambra, with the Nasrid Palaces slot at nine in the morning. The palaces are the part with the timed entry and you cannot enter outside your half-hour window - arrive early, because the entrance is a fifteen-minute walk from the ticket office. The Generalife gardens afterwards, then the Alcazaba fortress, then back down through the woods.

Give it five hours. I gave it four and was rushing at the end.

Day 5. Sacromonte and the cave houses in the morning, then the cathedral and the Capilla Real. In the evening, a flamenco tablao in a cave - touristy, yes, and the guitar was extraordinary.

One Granada peculiarity worth knowing: in most bars here a drink still comes with a free tapa, and you do not choose it. Three drinks is dinner.

Days 6–8: Seville

Day 6. Train from Granada, about three hours. Seville in the evening: the Plaza de España, which was built for a 1929 exhibition and looks like a film set because it has been one several times.

Day 7. The best three hours of the trip. The Real Alcázar at opening time - a royal palace still in use, with Mudéjar courtyards that are, whisper it, more beautiful than parts of the Alhambra and much less crowded. Then the cathedral and up the Giralda, which is a ramped tower rather than stairs because it was built for a man on horseback to ride up.

Afternoon in Triana across the river, which was the potters' and flamenco quarter and still feels like a separate town.

Day 8. Santa Cruz in the early morning before the tour groups, when the lanes are empty and you can hear your own footsteps. Then the Metropol Parasol for the view, a last lunch, and out.

Getting between the three

Leg	Method	Time
Alicante → Granada	Coach	5 h
Granada → Seville	Train	3 h
Seville → airport	Bus	35 min

No car needed at any point, and all three cities are best walked.

What I got right and wrong

1. Right: booking the Alhambra first. Everything else was flexible; that was not.
2. Wrong: four hours at the Alhambra. Five, minimum.
3. Right: eating at Spanish hours. Lunch at two, dinner at nine. The food is better and the rooms are full of people who live there.
4. Wrong: one afternoon in Triana. It deserved a whole day.