Your question is a bit like my asking if there are any nice rural places in Canada that aren't advertised...etc. Europe is a large and very diverse continent. It's actually more diverse than Canada. I could go on at length about places like that in Andalucia; that's just one region of one country. I'm sure others could do the same about Sweden or Romania.

Without wanting to be at all unkind, I think you may have underestimated the scale and diversity of Europe.

To answer your question…

There area areas in Granada in the Alpujarras that are very beautiful and not touristy. The district of La Taha is a group of hamlets, linked by an ancient path that offers an easy 2 or 3 hours walk seeing pretty mountains and extremelly well preserved whitewashed villages that can transport you back in time. Possibly you won´t see any tourists, although is common that there are english-speaking people in the area. There are buses from Granada, the alsinagraells.com buses can take you from…

I'm going to start in the end. If I were you I'd try to resist the temptation of going somewhere else in Europe. 28 days is a great amount of time for Spain and Portugal. It's not enough to see everything of course, but it is a decent amount of time to see some highlights and perhaps some(relatively) off the beaten track places. I don't understand why do you want to see so few places? I'd kick myself if I had almost a whole month, but restricted to only 4 destinations(Lisbon, Lagos, Sevilla…

Hi everyone,

We're headed for Andalucia for 2 weeks in mid January. Landing in Malaga, heading to see Seville and Granada.

We usually like to visit about one place per week (so that we can get to know the local area and people) and we typically stay in hostels because they're a great source for local knowledge.

Here's what we'd like to do, and I hoped some of you could help steer us.

We're landing in Malaga and plan to head immediately up to Seville for about 4 nights. After this our…

Which days will there be processions or other evens?

It depends where you are located. It can vary from processions every day from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday (both included) to no procession at all. The days with more processions (where there are processions) are usally Maundy Thursday and Good Friday.

Which days is travel and accommodation likely to be hard to find?

As mredman said on #1, some people takes holiday for all the week. Others just the week-end. Once again, there are…

#7,

if you know so much about spain and are so knowledgeable about everything and like posting helpful advice, at least give the OP an educated guess based on your experiences in spain, as opposed to some arrogant, vague and condescending response, it's totally unhelpful and rude...honestly.

OP:

there's a great program financed by the spanish gov't offering teaching scholarships and limited work-study visas to native english speakers to help teach english at public schools in spain. despite…

My girlfriend and I are planning a trip to Andalucia in June 2012 and we would be very grateful for some advice on our itinerary.

By way of background, we spent two weeks driving around Andalucia in 2005 and visited Sevilla, the Sierra Norte National Park, Cordoba, Cadiz, Ronda, Grazalema, Sanlucar de Barramenda, and Los Canos de Meca. It was one of the best trips we have ever done and we loved virtually everything.

We also spent a few weeks in Marbella in 2000 as I had a summer job there, and…

Hi all

My head is spinning !

I have posted earlier about car hire and possible travel itineraries and have wittled it down to two. The thing is, I have to plan around a wedding in Malaga on the 19th. Anyway, any help would be appreciated ! Accommodation etc.

Itinerary 1 (Seems to be the more expensive option flight-wise):
12 May Cape Town to Barcelona
13 May Arrive Barcelona
14 - 16 May Barcelona
17 May Barcelona to Malaga by airplane (found it's both cheaper and faster)
18 - 19 May Torremolinos
20…

Bear in mind that when we talk of Europe and climate, there are huge variations across the continent.

In January I've been hiking in the mountains in Andalucia wearing a short-sleeved shirt and thin trousers. You wouldn't do that in Scandinavia or the UK. The mild winters of the West of Ireland where snow, and even frost, is rare have little in common with the harsher winters of central Europe. The short daylight hours of Northern Europe in January aren't replicated in the South. By March…

Sevilla is wonderful, and had probably the best food I had tried in Spain. Try to order tapas instead of full "raciones" - not only it works out cheaper, but you get to try different things. As for small towns, I suggest Ecija and Carmona, easily reachable by bus from Sevilla in 1 long day. They were beautiful and not touristy like Ronda.

For you to have an idea of what they look like, here are my pics:
Ecija - http://www.flickr.com/photos/28095414@N02/tags/ecija/
Carmona - http://www.flickr.c…