We had visited Spain previously spending time in Madrid, Barcelona, and doing road trips and excursions to see Seville and other popular spots from Malaga and Torremolinos. We enjoy Spain quite a bit, and when we saw a deal on tickets for a direct flight from Miami to Madrid, we jumped on it knowing we could build a trip around some previously unseen sights as well as repeating some of our favorites in Madrid.
This time we opted for a road trip combining a rental car with the train to see a few of the smaller off the beaten path cities in Spain. We had very much enjoyed a similar experience recently visiting smaller towns in Northern Italy. We had also previously enjoyed doing road trips in France’s Loire Valley Germany, Ireland, and Normandy.
After some research we converged on two main cities to visit on our short 8-day trip. Toledo and Cordoba. We’d spend a few days in each and do road trips to some of the further afield sites. We would also visit some castles along the way.
We’ve done some road trips where we changed hotels every night while trying to maximize our coverage of attractions. But, we’ve come to appreciate getting settled into a room for a few days and using it as a home base. It’s also nice to get to know a city a little better with a few nights to try out different restaurants and wander around until we feel like we’ve gotten the feel of it.
Madrid, Spain
Arriving in Madrid’s enormous international airport, Adolfo Suárez Madrid–Barajas Airport (MAD) at the crack of dawn, we rented a car with SIXT (who had agencies in multiple terminals, so be sure to get the right one! T4 for North American flights using either Eros or American). We picked up our little Peugeot 208, which we knew would be great for city touring. The car actually came with a GPS for no additional charge.
See our post: Travel Tip: Opt for a Small Rental Car in Europe, Skip the Tempting Upgrade
Toledo, Spain
After driving a short 1-hour distance we arrived at our first stop, Toledo, where we would spend two nights visiting the city. The city is beautiful to visit and driving up you can see the stone walls and the imposing alcazar, cathedral, and monastery from a distance. Toledo was a wonderful and charming city, and we very much enjoyed our stay. Read more about it in our dedicated post about Toledo.
Our next stop, Cordoba, was about four hours’ drive from Toledo. We picked up our car that had been in the car park the whole time to start our drive. This trip would only be about 2 hours by high-speed train for those that opted to ditch the car, but we had planned to visit a couple of sites along the way and further afield from our main stops.
Almonacid de Toledo
The road trip didn’t disappoint! Just a short way out of Toledo along the main autoroute, we saw the Castle of Almonacid in the distance.
There was also a huge church in the city center that we passed by but it was closed to visitors and only open on Sundays for a service one of the locals told us.
Continuing toward the castle, we drove up a steep gravel road that led us right to the top of the hill and next to the castle fortress of Almondacid. Much of the castle was in ruins and it reminded us of the many castle remnants we had seen in Ireland. It was windy but worth it for the views!
While much of Toledo was actually a stone walled fortress in itself, it was still nice to see our first stone castle of the trip!
Castillo de Consuegra
Returning to the highway we were on the road less than an hour when we came up to our next stop, the Castillo de Consuegra. Built by the Knights Templar in the 10th century, this castle was restored to a large degree and visitable only by timed tours in Spanish.
The tour took us through the various rooms and chambers where we could better appreciate the castle and the views from the top.
The castle is surrounded by Molinos de Viento de Consuegra. These 12 whitewashed windmills were built in the 19th century for grinding flour. They now seemed to be privately owned concession stands selling hot chocolate to counter the icy cold winds. Definitely a good spot for windmills up on that hill!
Cordoba and environs
We continued our drive to Cordoba where we would keep the car to visit a couple of out of the way attractions on the outskirts of the city: the historical site of Madinat Al-Zahra, and the impressive hilltop Castillo Almodovar del Rio featured in Game of Thrones.
Read more about these attractions and our visit to Cordoba in our dedicated Cordoba post.
These two sites are definitely worth the visit but best done on a separate day as there is a lot to take in and trying to combine them with a 4-hour drive and the other sights would have been too much.
We opted to return the car in Cordoba as here too all the attractions were within walking distance and the car would have just been parked. Driving and parking in the old historic part of the city is next to impossible and restricted. Not only that but driving back to Madrid would take 5 hours while the high-speed train was half that and way more comfortable and cheaper too!
Back to Madrid
We also gave ourselves some time in Madrid to revisit the city as well as some of the further afield sites like the El Escorial Royal Monastery which is about 30 minutes out of town.
With an early flight out, we didn’t want to be bothered with returning a car at the airport either, so we opted to rent a car at the train station for the day and just take a taxi on our last day direct to the airport terminal. The MAD airport is huge and even being dropped off at Terminal 4 we needed to take a long train after security to the satellite terminal with various check points along the way, give yourself ample time!
While we only opted to visit a couple of cities and 8 nights was long enough, one could easily plan to add Seville, Malaga, Rhonda, and other cities to such a tour of Spain.
Quite honestly if we would do it again, we would use the train and just rent cars locally for day trips. The train system with Renfe is fast and efficient and there are many trains allowing for a flexible schedule. Make sure to book through the official site as there are multiple scam sites that markup tickets and maybe don’t even give you real ones!! See our post: Getting Around by Train in Europe
Conclusion
We also opted to go off season in February. We had visited Portugal in February and loved the small crowds and enjoyed the cooler weather for visiting. We hoped we’d have a similar experience in Spain but this time we actually hit a cold spell. It had been great the week before, so you never know.
Moreover, some stores, restaurants and even some attractions were closed or partially closed as they did renovations in the off season. We were also too early to see the gardens in bloom and some of the fountains had not been turned on yet. We would recommend March or April for a shoulder season visit where you can still have smaller crowds and more comfortable weather.
As the plane took off from Madrid we looked down and saw some lakeside villages next to the Sierra de Guadarrama mountains that simply looked beautiful. It reminded us of the lake area in Northern Italy. We looked at these thinking that maybe if another deal on a Madrid flight were to present itself, we could easily find a few more Spanish towns to visit.