The Sun Coast
9 DAYS
Madrid 3 • Seville 2 • Costa del Sol 2
Basic Inclusions
Accommodations
Accommodations in centrally-located three-star or four-star hotels. Rooming on a triple basis. Double rooms: $50 per night, per person.
Meals
All breakfasts. All dinners.
Transportation
Round-trip transportation on scheduled airline. Deluxe touring motorcoach. All public transportation tickets included where applicable.
Guide
Services of a specially-trained passports Tour Director throughout. All tips are included in the Program Cost. Whisper headsets included.
Travel Protection
Passports provides and pays for a Post Departure Travel Protection Plan that includes coverage for Trip Interruption, Trip Delay, Medical Expense and Evacuation and more.
Tour Summary
Itinerary Includes
Unlimited public transportation
Days 1-2: Arrival Madrid
Arrival transfer
Day 3: Madrid
Half-day city sightseeing: Guide, Visit to the Prado Museum, Prado headset
Excursion to Toledo: Visit to Toledo Cathedral, Visit to the Church of Santo Tomé (El Greco's painting), Visit to a historic synagogue
Day 4: Madrid
Excursion to El Escorial, Valley of the Fallen and Segovia: Visit to the Royal Monastery of El Escorial, Visit to the Valley of the Fallen, Local Guide, Visit to Segovia's Alcázar, Photo stop at the Roman Aqueduct
Optional Flamenco Show
Day 5: Madrid - Seville
Guided walking tour in Córdoba, Visit to the Mezquita
Day 6: Seville
Half-day city sightseeing: Local Guide, Visit to Seville Cathedral (view Christopher Columbus' tomb) and the Giralda Tower, Visit to the Royal Alcázar of Seville
Optional Guadalquivir River Cruise
Day 7: Seville - Costa del Sol
Visit to the Alhambra Palace, Visit to the Generalife Gardens
Day 8: Costa del Sol
Optional Excursion to Tangier: Hydrofoil Tarifa-Tangier, Guided walking tour in Tangier, Hydrofoil Tangier - Tarifa
Day 9: Departure
Departure transfer
UNPARALLELED STANDARD OF EXCELLENCE
Detailed Itinerary
Days 1-2: Arrival
A dream comes true as your wide-bodied jet thunders off the airstrip, Europe-bound! Watch the sun rise up to meet your airplane, after a short night. Spain glides by beneath your airplane, in shades of sienna, as you head towards Madrid's Barajas Airport.
Get settled in your madrileño hotel and explore your surroundings.
Stroll in the Plaza Mayor, the heart of the Old City.
For lunch, why not duck into a sidewalk mesón for a sopa de pescado or some calamares?
Overnight: Madrid
Day 3: Madrid City Sightseeing, Excursion to Toledo
On a tour of the city, you will be introduced to the sights and the city grand squares: Plaza Mayor, Puerta del Sol, Plaza de España with the Cervantes Monument, Gran Vía, Calle Alcalá, Plaza de Colón, and Plaza de Cibeles with its fountains.
A half-day local guide, well-educated and specially-trained on the history and culture of Madrid and its surroundings, will accompany your group.
View world-famous paintings by El Greco, Goya, and Velázquez, and much. much more, at the magnificent Museo del Prado.
Toledo is surrounded on three sides by the Río Tajo, which has cut a deep gorge out of the encircling mountains. Christianity, Judaism and Islam coexist on the tiny streets of this ancient city, which was once the capital of Spain. Indeed, the entire panorama of Spanish history is embodied in its churches, synagogues, Moorish mosques and fortifications.
Visit one of the most impressive Spanish cathedrals, completed in 1492, after nearly 300 years. Its treasury contains an impressive display of gold and silver vessels and alabaster sculpture.
Visit the Church of St. Thomas to view El Greco's Burial of the Count of Orgaz, a fresco commissioned in honor of a Spanish nobleman who was known for his generosity and charitable deeds.
Enjoy a visit to one of the city's two remaining medieval synagogues.
Overnight: Madrid
Day 4: Excursion to El Escorial, Valley of the Fallen and Segovia, Optional Flamenco Show
Set out for the wooded slopes of Mt. Abantos, watershed of the Guadarrama River, where Spanish royalty retreated from the summer heat and from the bustle of the capital city.
At the palatial religious retreat of King Philip II, El Escorial, you will see the Royal Pantheon where the kings are buried, the Crypt of the Royal Children, the Apartments of King Philip, the Basilica with Titian's fresco depicting the martyrdom of St. Lawrence, and the lavish library, which contains 40,000 rare manuscripts, including the diary of St. Teresa of Ávila.
Stop at the Valle de los Caídos, a wooded belvedere nestled in the Guadarrama Mountains that features the world's largest monumental cross. It's also the site of an underground basilica that General Franco ordered carved inside a hill of solid granite by prisoners of war from the Republican side: it houses his tomb and was intended as a monument to Fascism. Make your way across the vast esplanade for a panoramic view of valleys and mountains.
A well-educated and specially-trained local guide will accompany your group.
You will stop in the beautiful city of Segovia, where Isabella, Christopher Columbus' sponsor, was proclaimed Queen of Castile.
Visit the most-photographed of all the Spanish castles, El Alcázar de Segovia. With its perfectly-proportioned features, it has become a symbol of Spain's medieval heritage.
Walk to the elegant aqueduct bridge built by the Romans c. AD 90 as part of a waterway that brought water to the city from mountains miles away.
Enjoy an evening of traditional entertainment, flamenco! The poet Federico García Lorca called it "the most gigantic creation of the Spanish people." You will long remember the complex and insistent rhythms, the castanets, guitars, and clacking heels as the highlight of your trip to Spain.
Overnight: Madrid
Day 5: Córdoba, Seville
Today, travel south through La Mancha, home of Don Quixote, to Córdoba, which was once as famous as Baghdad in the Islamic world. At that time, Córdoba's cultural life was centered around its 70 libraries, with the Caliph's library alone holding 400,000 volumes! Throughout the ages, exceptional scholars have blossomed here, including Seneca, the Roman author/statesman, and the medieval philosophers Maimonides and Averroes.
Discover the historic center, with the Jewish Quarter(Judería). See the statue of Maimónides, Calle Judíos, and the Sinagoga that dates back to 1315,: it's the only Andalusian synagogue to have survived the 1492 eExpulsion of the Jews.
Cross the Patio de los Naranjos, where orange blossoms bloom in the spring. Enter the Great Mosque, in the heart of which a large Roman Catholic Cathedral was built after the Reconquest by the Christian Kings.
Marvel at the Mezquita's forest of "candy cane" arches adorned with precious stones, at its ceiling of carved cedar and 4,000 bronze and copper lamps. View the Mihrab shrine, where the Koran was kept.
Depart for the Guadalquivir River valley, where fertile farms and vineyards enliven the scenery; your destination is Don Juan's Sevilla, one of the prettiest cities in Andalusia.
Overnight: Seville
Day 6: Seville City Sightseeing, Optional Guadalquivir River Cruise
Get acquainted with Sevilla on a tour of the city. You'll stop for photos at the Plaza de España and explore on foot the well-preserved Barrio de Santa Cruz, a picturesque maze of alleys and patios which once was the Jewish quarter. You will see the ancient minaret called the Giralda, the Parque María Luisa, the famous tobacco factory where Bizet's Carmen worked and the crenelated tower called the Torre del Oro, which was built in the 13th century to protect the port.
A half-day local guide, well-educated and specially-trained on the history and culture of Seville, will accompany your group.
A visit is included to the great Gothic cathedral, where you will see the flamboyant monument to Columbus, and the tomb of Ferdinand III: its trilingual inscription in Arabic, Hebrew and Castilian symbolizes this 13th-century king's vision of his kingdom as the home of all three faiths.
Then, climb the Giralda, a former minaret that stands near the cathedral. Instead of stairs, this tower was designed with an interior ramp which makes the climb almost effortless. From the top, visitors have a great overview of the cathedral's roof and buttresses.
Enjoy a visit to this UNESCO World Heritage Site over a thousand years old that's a stunning blend of Mudéjar and Christian architecture. Regarded as the most beautiful palace in Spain, El Real Alcázar de Sevilla was a residence of Spanish kings for nearly seven centuries after the Reconquista.
You may want to take a look at the Archivo General de Indias and its display of original documents autographed by Columbus, Magellan or Cortés.
Enjoy a scenic boat ride along the picturesque Guadalquivir River. Listen to the commentary while you enjoy the sights from a different perspective.
Overnight: Seville
Day 7: Granada, Costa del Sol
Board your coach for a drive to the last stronghold of the Moors: Granada.
Visit Medina al-Ambra, the "Red City" better known now as the Alhambra, which was the palace of the Moorish rulers. Its beauty inspired Washington Irving's Tales of the Alhambra.
In its Nasrid Palaces, you will see extraordinary stucco ornamentation and intricate tilework, particularly in the Golden Room. The Alhambra also illustrates the mingling of cultures in Islamic Spain: notice the Christian shell motif used to decorate an alcove in the Courtyard of Myrtles and the Star of David found in a room off the Courtyard of Lions.
You will also tour the gardens created for the Sultan and exquisitely maintained ever since.
As you cross the Sierra Nevada Mountains, you'll understand why it took the Spanish so long to capture the city from the well-entrenched Moors.
A welcome puff of fresh sea breeze announces your arrival on the fabulous Costa del Sol. Enjoy the friendly, relaxed lifestyle of the Mediterranean in this region which averages 320 days of sunshine a year!
Overnight: Costa del Sol
Day 8: Costa del Sol, Optional Excursion to Tangier
Plan your free time or consider an optional excursion.
Retrace the path of the Moors across the Strait of Gibraltar on an excursion to Tangier, Morocco! Inhabited by the Berbers since the Stone Age, Morocco has attracted in turn the Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Portuguese, Spanish, and French, all of whom have left their marks upon the country's history and traditions. Morocco was among the very first nations to formally recognize the new United States; a Treaty of Friendship between the two countries, signed in 1836, has been unbroken ever since.
Travel south along the coast to Algeciras, at the southernmost tip of Spain.
Your destination is North Africa, and the first country in the world that officially recognized the young United States of America, back in 1777. This was followed in 1786 by the signature of the Moroccan-American Treaty of Friendship. This treaty with Morocco remains the longest unbroken treaty relationship in the history of the USA.
A local guide will introduce Tangier, from which great civilizations have sprung into Europe. See the fabled Kasbah, the highest place in the old Medina, where the Sultan's palace is located. Practice the fine art of bargaining at the picturesque market of the Grand Socco (souk). Morocco is well-known for its fine leather goods, silver and gold jewelry, inlaid and carved wood, spices, copperware and carpets. Exotic, eclectic images will fill your visit to this corner of Africa: mosques and minarets, souks and Kasbahs, magic carpets, haggling salesmen, snake charmers, camels, sultans and belly dancers. The unimaginable difference that a few miles of open water can make!
Board a hydrofoil and retrace the path of the Moors across the Strait of Gibraltar.
We are required to obtain all travelers' passport numbers, country of origin, date of issue and date of expiration before any reservation to Morocco can be made on your behalf.
Overnight: Costa del Sol
Day 9: Departure
¡Adios España! Málaga's airport recedes and you're 500 miles closer to home for every hour in the air. You'll be back! For now, race the sun westward and arrive home later today, eager to share your discoveries with family and friends.
CUSTOM TOURS
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Madrid City Sightseeing
Excursion to Toledo
Excursion to El Escorial
Excursion to Segovia
Cordoba, Spain
Seville City Sightseeing
Granada, Spain
Costa del Sol, Spain
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