Spain Private Tour ... Itinerary 19
Jackie and Derrell Coker from Austen flew into Madrid's new terminal 4 at 07:45
on Friday 7th April. Here they met their daughter Lauren who is studying at a
Madrid university. From here we took the R4 toll road off the M40 to avoid the
Friday traffic and headed for Andalucia.
At Consuegra we took a detour to have
a look at the Don Quijote windmills then once beyond Despeñaperros we stopped
for lunch in the mountains at Santa Elena.
We then continued on to Granada and checked into the
Plaza Nueva hotel where rooms were reserved overlooking the square
with views up to the Alhambra.
On the Saturday morning the family headed up to the Alhambra ticket office where
they met our official guide for a private tour of the palaces. After lunch we
met in Plaza Nueva and headed cross country to Ronda where they stayed at the
Maestranza Hotel.The next day we drove across the beautiful countryside via
the white villages of Grazalema and Arcos de la Frontera arriving at the
Hotel Bécquer just as the first processions of Semana Santa (Holy
Week) were about to commence. The streets throughout the central area were
packed with people heading for the procession route where for the next week
enormous floats holding statues of religious scenes would be carried around the
streets of Seville by teams of parishioners. This is one of Spain's greatest
national festivals.
On the morning of Monday 10th Jackie, Derrell and Lauren met Concepción, our
guide in Seville, and took a walking tour of the old town then spent the rest of
the day visiting many of the other main attractions of the city. On Tuesday
morning we met at the hotel and headed out of the city and took the motorway
south to Jerez where we visited the Gonzalez Byass sherry bodega and enjoyed a
tour and tasting.
With a taste for the local wines we then headed over to Sanlucar for lunch at
Bajo de Guia on a terrace overlooking the sea and the national park of Doñana
across the water. The king prawns and clams in garlic washed down with the local
white Barbadillo wine was most enjoyable.
The following morning we drove west to Cordoba staying at the
Conquistador. Here I left our guests who would spend the rest
of the day sightseeing in Cordoba before taking the high speed AVE train up to
Madrid tomorrow where they had one remaining night before flying back to the US.
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