Our family is flying into Madrid on 6/11/05 and we are leaving from
Madrid on 7/10/05. My older son (17) will be in Cadiz for the first 3
weeks at school and we will meet up with him there and travel with him
back to Madrid. Our other two children are 7 and 12.  Our thought is
to spend a week in Madrid seeing sights and taking day trips (Toledo),
then renting a car and exploring as much of the rest of the country as
we can (likely Barcelona then south to Sevilla/Cadiz). Our preference
is to find a base for 4-5 days then move to the next locale. We're
willing to pay $200 - $300 per night for accommodations if need be,
but don't require luxurious settings as much as space for the kids
(when it's 4 of us we can share a large room, but the last week, we'll
need 2 rooms). None of us has been to Spain before, but my wife and I
have travelled extensively on our own to Europe and Asia.  So...

I need a proposal (with alternatives) for an itenerary that
incorporates cultural attractions as well as kid friendly
destinations. I need info on must have items to pack, renting a car (a
mini-van is likely needed) from a reliable company, driving tips,
cities/towns to use as bases for day trips, thoughts on villa rentals
in those locales,
hotel recommendations and thoughts on where to stop along the way
(good beaches?) and general advice for first-time travelers to Spain.
I've booked the flights and get around the internet well enough to
book rooms online. I've bought lots of tour guides, but don't have
time to read them. I need someone to prioritize for me and give
suggestions on how to make arrangements quickly. Thanks...

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Request for Question Clarification by nenna-ga on 10 May 2005 09:42 PDT

Hello,

If you could break this down into weeks for your trip, telling us what
week you'll ned what kind of accomodations and where you'd like to
be..we can find this for you much easier than assuming, as possibly
being wrong.

For example:
Week 1 we'll need a 2 room accomodation in ______ locale.
Week 2 we'll need a 1 room accomodation in _______ locale....

Also, what activities are you looking for there, any certain sights or
places you would like us to include?
Let us know and we can get to work on this.

Nenna-GA

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Clarification of Question by ignatiusj-ga on 10 May 2005 11:34 PDT

Week one: My wife, 11 year-old son, 7 year old daughter and I would
like to see Madrid and enivrons, probably staying at a nice hotel
that's centrally located. If we don't need a car this week, that's
fine as I've found out how much a mini-van costs to rent. Maybe
mornings would be in museums or cultural attractions and afternoons
doing something more kid-friendly, though if the weather is beastly
hot, it would best to spend the afternoon indoors. If everything's
closed for siesta, we could hang out at the hotel pool maybe. I'd love
to see Toledo one day during this week and don't know if you can do
that without a car. We're somewhat averse to being trapped on a
package tour, but it might be worthwhile for that kind of expedition.

Week two: Get to Barcelona maybe, or some other other area we can set
up a base in and explore from. Could be a hotel, or a villa in the
countryside for a week if there's a nice place to stay with
interesting sights nearby. Doesn't have to be near Barcelona, or even
to the East, but that's one thought.

Week three: Like week 2, but someplace else. A hotel or villa with
interesting things to do nearby, in a different part of the country.
We don't have a checklist of things we have to see, but do want to
feel like we've gotten a good flavor of the things the country has to
offer, urban and rural. At the end of this week, we need to be in
Cadiz to pick up our 17-year-old at his school in Cadiz.

Week four: Maybe the beach and tour of the coast?  Will likely be hot,
kids will be worn out and we'll be ready to take it easy. We need to
fly out of Madrid (and return the rental car) on July 10, so probably
want to drive back on the 9th, which is also my birthday, so would be
nice to find a place to celebrate with a nice dinner along the way.

My wife teaches world history and is interested in seeing historical
sights, including those showing the Muslim influence. I like art and
look forward to seeing works by El Greco and Picasso. The 11 year old
is studying Spanish in school and is generally pretty curious about
everything. The youngest likes pop music ("rock and roll") and arts
and crafts.  They all like the beach and computer games.  Let me know
if you need more...

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Clarification of Question by ignatiusj-ga on 18 May 2005 14:07 PDT

And I should probably mention that we need an answer pretty soon if
it's going to do us any good. We leave in one month and need to book
hotels, etc. Please let me know the status of the answer if you can.
Thanks...

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Clarification of Question by ignatiusj-ga on 20 May 2005 13:05 PDT

well... not to put to fine a point on it, but if i don't have any info
by wednesday 5/25, I'm going to withdraw the question... we're getting
dangerously close to departure time. Thanks for understanding our
urgency.

Part of the reason you may not be getting an answer is that for the
amount of work involved to do this correctly, the price does not meet
that time.
For example, if I was to do this question:
It would take me a good 8 hours to research this and format an answer,
and when you divide that by the 75% of the listed price we get as
reseachers it comes out to 4.21 an hour, which is less than minimum
wage.

Here is a link to guidelines about pricing
your question, https://answers.google.com/answers/pricing.html

Ah... okay... fair enough. I've spent some time on this myself and
refined it quite a bit. How about if I post the question this way:

Same people traveling, but the schedule is now less ambitious. 

June 12 - Arrive Madrid, spend six nights on sightseeing and day
trips. Need hotel accomodations for 2 adults, 2 kids (1 large room,
mini-suite or 2 rooms)
June 18 - Train to Toledo. Need hotel accomodations for 2 adults, 2
kids (1 large room, mini-suite or 2 rooms)
June 20 - Train back to Madrid, switch to express train to Seville.
Need hotel accomodations for 2 adults, 2 kids (1 large room,
mini-suite or 2 rooms)
June 22 - Rent a mini-van in Seville. Need recommendation on rental firms.
June 23 - Drive to Cordoba. Need hotel accomodations for 2 adults, 2
kids (1 large room, mini-suite or 2 rooms).
June 25 - Drive to Grenada. Need hotel accomodations for 2 adults, 2
kids (1 large room, mini-suite or 2 rooms).
June 27 - Drive to an apt/villa/hotel on the coast. Need
recommendations on vacation rentals and a good spot on the coast for
kids.
July 1 - Drive to Cadiz to pick up our son (firm date). The 5 of us
either return to place we had been staying or find a new place in
Cadiz.
July 4 - Drive to Seville, return rental car
July 6 - Express train to Madrid
July 10 - Fly home

Also would like feedback on this from the perspective of city
selection and apportionment of days to each city. Is this a reasonable
trip? Too much? Too little? Does the transportation work (i.e., can
you use public transit to get around within the cities?). What MUST we
see in each city?

Is this a less labor intensive request? If not, I can continue
pursuing this on my own, since I have some time available. Thanks for
your advice...

rent a car international companies (Hertz, Avis...) are aviable in
every travel station/airport in the hole country. The best Hotels are
the following chains: Melia (www.solmelia.com), NH hotels, AC Hotels.
There are good offers in every travel agency.
The cities you talked about in your post are interesting, but I would
add Granada (where i live). Your children arenīt going to have
problems to have fun.
The best way to travel is Bus or Train, both quite fine. Airways are
too expensive to travel between cities of Spain, but not to travel
between main airports (Madrid, Barcelona, Mallorca and Malaga)and big
cities in the rest of Europe.