Spain!

I know, it's been forever since I posted, but for good reason (and not a pregnancy, which seems to be in the water lately!) - My husband and I were planning and then enjoying our Thanksgiving holiday in Spain! We flew to Madrid the Wednesday before Thanksgiving week and stayed until the Sunday after. Our itinerary was mad-dash in order to squeeze the places that were on our "must" list...and this was AFTER we both made some concessions of places we wanted to see. This was our schedule:

Day 1 - Arrive in Madrid at 10am, taxi to the AVE train station, then high-speed train to Cordoba to spend the afternoon and night.
Day 2 - Cordoba in the morning then high-speed rail to Seville for the afternoon and night.
Day 3 - Seville in the morning, then (very) slow train to Granada
Days 3/4/5 - Granada - we planned a little more time here than some other locations in order to spend one entire day touring the Alhambra, and it's a good thing we did, we could have stayed there another day!
Day 5 - Granada in the morning, then we picked up our Mini and were off to the Costa Blanca. We drove along the coast until we reached Altea, a gorgeous Mediterranean seaside town that I would happily spend the rest of my life in!
Day 6 - Altea in the morning then we drove inland through Castille La Mancha to Cuenca, where we stayed at the only Paradore of our trip, and got to view the gorgeous "hanging" houses.
Day 7 - Depart Cuenca for Toledo, and say goodbye to the Mini :( We spent the afternoon and night in Toledo.
Day 8 - Toledo in the morning, then high-speed rail for the quick trip back to Madrid.
Days 8/9/10/11 - Madrid. We wanted to spend a good amount of time here for two reasons, 1 to relax from our whirlwind, and 2 to see everything without feeling frantic. It was amazing, we were able to go to the Prado, Thyssen and Reina Sofia museums, the Royal Palace, Botanical Gardens, El Retiro park and SO much more. Even better, they were setting up for Christmas when we got there, and the next night there was a tree-lighting and huge concert outside in one of the squares a few blocks from our hotel. There was so much energy, it was amazing to be there to be part of it!