Prelude
Let's get one thing out of the way, first: a trip of this nature is not for the faint of heart. 1,850 kilometers by car (that's 1,150 miles for the metrically resistant), 470 km by high-speed rail, 36 nautical miles by ferry, and a daily diet of 15,000–20,000 steps trying to squeeze every last drop of history, culture, beauty, and jamón out of one of the most extraordinary corners of Europe. Fifteen days. Eleven different lodgings. Twenty two pack/unpack cycles. Yes, twenty-two, I counted, I'm that kind of person. And, as you look at the day-by-day itinerary, before you start rolling your eyes, or reaching for the paper bag to fight off a panic attack, we did manage the occasional siesta, the unhurried café stop (instead of “para llevar”), the cold Tinto de Verano or adult beverage of choice on a sunny sidewalk, and the kind of bench-sitting "people watching" that my daughter, in her younger years, used to call "staring at people." Both descriptions are accurate.
A trip like this would normally take a month to do right. Leisurely mornings. Long lunches sipping that second glass of Albariño (or sherry, or vermouth, as customary in these parts of Spain). The kind of afternoon wandering that has no agenda, and generally existing like a civilized human being. But when two weeks is what you have, and a very long “must see” list, you end up with something like this: controlled chaos, planned with surgical precision, and masterfully executed. Or at least that's what I told myself every time I was hauling a suitcase up another cobblestone hill.
Just be aware: Andalucía doesn’t ease you in. It immediately overwhelms you. With history. With beauty. With layers upon layers of civilizations that didn’t just pass through, but stayed, built, conquered, rebuilt… and left behind places that no one person, or one culture could have dreamt up. Astonishing, really!
But “why start in Madrid?”, you ask, since this is a Southern Spain trip? Why not Seville or Málaga?
Simple. Flights were half price. And I’ve never been to Madrid. Case closed.
So buckle up. Fifteen days full of exploration. Ten provinces. Three countries (yes, technically). Two very happy travelers. And an extremely full memory card.
Was it too much? Absolutely!
Would I change it? Not a chance.
(ok…maybe small tweaks here and there.)
This is not how you’re “supposed” to do it. This is how we did it.
Let's see if you can keep up.
Oh, wait! Before we get started... As usual, these are my vacation impressions, experiences and personal opinions. None of the places mentioned provided any "kickbacks" or incentives. Any recommendations happen to be based on my own experience. Your opinions may be different. The lens through which you read this may have a different prescription. And that's ok. Just enjoy and hope it helps in case you're planning a similar trip!
P.S. - each post is longer, more descriptive, than what my previous travel blogs. The reason explained later, although immediately apparent. But each day starts with a summary snippet. “Bait”, if you want. Read that first, and decide if you’re “hooked”. I hope you will be!
Day 1: Madrid → Toledo → Jaén (a perfectly reasonable way to ignore jet lag)
Day one abandoned its methodically crafted plan almost immediately (rerouted by the King of Spain himself) turning Madrid from a quick pass-through into a standout opening act, complete with a palace visit that outdid expectations and set an unreasonably high bar for everything that followed. From there, the drive south became a crash course in Spanish history and scale: Toledo stacking two millennia of civilizations onto a single hilltop, Consuegra delivering the very real windmills of Don Quixote fame, and Jaén arriving just in time for sunset over an almost absurd expanse of olive groves, a castle-top panorama, and a first taste of Andalucía’s culinary bliss. With “internal battery” lights flashing red, jet lag + lack of sleep combining as a one-two knockout punch, an evening stroll by a moonlit cathedral to wrap up the day, with the quiet realization that the trip was off to a dangerously strong start.
Madrid: The King Didn't Know I Was Coming
The original plan was clean and logical: fly into Madrid, collect the rental car, and point it south toward Andalucía, keeping a day or two at the end of the trip for the capital itself. A sensible, logical, grown-up plan.
And then the Palacio Real (the Royal Palace) got involved.
A visit to the palace had been locked into the itinerary from day one. I'd booked tickets weeks in advance. Then, about a couple weeks before departure, I received a politely worded notification that my chosen dates had been cancelled due to a Royal engagement. Which is to say: His Majesty King Felipe VI had apparently decided that the day I wanted to visit his official residence was a good day for State business, and would I kindly choose another date? I would. Reluctantly admitting that the King had priority. So the trip began not with a beeline south, but with a morning drive into the city. And, as it turned out, one of the finest visits of the entire trip.
A quick note on jet lag management first. I grabbed a couple of zz's on the transatlantic flight, which is sufficient fuel if you're wired like me. But if you are a normal human being who values sleep over immediate adrenaline, a gentler first day is strongly advisable. That's what most people would do. I remain proudly unqualified to confirm this from personal experience. I’m not “most people”. Far from it.
Dragging my wife along [the semi-pro photo editor of this here enterprise] despite the often grueling pace, was an exercise in endurance that she met with grit, stoic staunchness, often real excitement, sprinkled with the occasional dash of tired abandonment, and enough well-timed rebellion to keep us human. Decades of “on-the-job training” have made her very, very good at it!
So let’s get on the road!
Twenty-five minutes after picking up the rental (and quietly congratulating myself on successfully navigating a seamless exchange with the Hertz agent entirely in Spanish, including the upsell conversation, which I declined with great dignity) we were parked a short walk from the palace. It doesn't open until 10 am, which gave us time to find a café in the neighborhood, order coffee and a tostada con tomate (the platonic ideal of Spanish breakfast: toasted bread, olive oil, crushed tomato, salt, and the realization that you have been doing breakfast wrong your entire adult life), and enjoy the quiet morning streets.
The Palacio Real: Grandeur at Scale
Advanced booking is not optional here. It's essential. Not just for availability, but because a pre-booked ticket means walking straight past the queue and into the palace like you own the place. Which, technically, as a taxpaying visitor contributing to the Spanish tourism economy, you sort of do. See booking info at the end of the post.
And then the palace itself.
The Palacio Real de Madrid is, by a significant margin, the largest royal palace in Western Europe. Versailles is more famous. Buckingham Palace is more photographed. But in raw floor space, Madrid wins: 135,000 square meters, 3,418 rooms, 870 windows, 240 balconies, 44 staircases. The original medieval Alcázar on this site burned to the ground on Christmas Eve 1734. This current building, commissioned by Philip V, was completed in 1755 and built entirely of stone. No wood in the structural elements. The King, deeply traumatized by the fire that destroyed the original palace and its irreplaceable art collection, decreed that the new building would be fireproof. That obsessive precaution is why this one still stands.
Inside, the audio guide justifies the added price. The scale of the rooms is the first thing that registers. They are not built for human comfort; they’re designed to project the kind of power that makes foreign ambassadors slightly weak in the knees.
The first sight you witness, the Grand Staircase has 70 steps, all Spanish marble, with a ceiling fresco that shows the monarchy basking in divine protection. It is genuinely hard to walk up without unconsciously adjusting your posture.
The Throne Room, walls lined in crimson velvet, a ceiling fresco depicting The Apotheosis of the Spanish Monarchy, is where visiting heads of state are received to this day. Four bronze lions guard the thrones of King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia. The message this room communicates is roughly: "You may be important wherever you come from, but you are now somewhere more important." Message received, your majesties.
The Royal Armory, meanwhile, is considered one of the finest collections of armor and weapons in the world, including the full tournament armor made for Charles V. Seeing an actual suit of armor worn by the man who ran the Habsburg Empire is one of those genuinely arresting "this is real" museum moments.
And the Banquet Hall: a long sweep of gilded, frescoed, tapestried, chandelier-hung splendor, with a table that stretches endlessly for state dinners, and a porcelain collection that would make a museum curator quietly weep. Astonishing!
When the Royal Palace cancelled our original dates, my instinct was to cut my losses and skip it, or leave it for “next time”. I cannot adequately express how glad I am that I rescheduled instead of walking away. It sets a very high bar for the rest of the trip. And the rest of the trip cleared that bar repeatedly, which tells you something about what follows. (plus, based on my Madrid impression, I highly doubt there will be a “next time”...)
A "few" more pics, because my wife did not drag that camera along for nothing:
The Cathedral: A Thousand Years of Unfinished Business
Looping out of the palace grounds, the Mirador de la Cornisa offers the first of what will become a recurring pleasure of this trip: the panoramic view from high ground. From here, the Manzanares river and the Campo del Moro gardens unfold below the palace walls, the city spreading beyond them. On a clear morning, after rain, the whole scene felt strangely still from up there.
Just across from the Palace, staring at each other across the Plaza de la Armería with the slightly loaded energy of two presumptuous old ladies, is the Catedral de Santa María la Real de la Almudena.
Now, this cathedral has possibly the most entertainingly humiliating origin story in Spanish ecclesiastical history. When Philip II transferred the capital from Toledo (1561), the city that was now the seat of the Spanish Empire (at the time the most powerful empire, controlling territories from the Americas to the Philippines) did not have a cathedral. This is roughly the equivalent of building the world's fanciest house and forgetting to install a bathroom. Plans were discussed. Proposals were floated. Commissions were appointed. Nothing happened. Decades passed. A century passed. Spain was too busy building an empire to build its own capital city a cathedral. Construction finally began in 1883, interrupted by the Spanish Civil War, and restarted in 1950 with a different architect. It was finally consecrated by Pope John Paul II, in 1993. It took 110 years. The Sagrada Família, often cited as the world's longest-running construction project, has competition.
The interior is Neo-Gothic with a genuinely surprising jolt of modernity: vivid stained glass in bold colors, clean vaulted ceilings, and several chapels that commissioned contemporary artists with results ranging from genuinely beautiful to "I respect your choices." The building lacks the centuries of accumulated gravitas that the cathedrals further south on this trip abundantly possess. It offers, instead, an immediate reminder of how deeply the Catholic Church is woven into the fabric of Spanish identity and history.
The roof ascent is worthwhile: there are close-up encounters with the stone saints and gargoyles that adorn the exterior. And ample views of Madrid stretching east alongside the palace's grand western facade. Standing up there, with the city spread below and the palace looming beside, you get a strong sense of how deliberately and theatrically this corner of Madrid was designed to project power.
A small but important sidebar before we leave Madrid, while we’re still in a religious establishment: I had planned the entire trip to fall in the week before Semana Santa. The elaborate Holy Week celebrations transform most Andalucían cities into a completely impenetrable sea of processional floats, penitents in pointed hoods, and brass bands playing haunting Baroque marches. In Seville, Málaga, and Córdoba especially, the streets are packed to a degree that reportedly require twenty minutes just to cross to the other side. Accommodation prices triple. It is, by all accounts, extraordinarily moving to witness, but absolutely catastrophic if what you want to do is actually visit things. I watched the Instagram coverage from the comfort of my digital device and felt confirmed in my homework. Similar logic applies to the Feria de Abril in Seville, two weeks after Easter. Time your trip around these and you'll thank me. Walk into either unprepared and you'll have only yourself to blame.
Toledo: Where Every Civilization Left Its Name on the Door
Back in the car, southbound, and barely an hour later, only 65 kilometers south of Madrid, but feeling like a continent away in time, Toledo.
The approach alone is theatrical. The road curves around the edge of a hill and suddenly the city appears on the skyline: walls, towers, cathedral spires, all compressed onto a dramatic rocky promontory wrapped on three sides by a bend in the Tagus River.
To understand Toledo is to understand that this single hilltop has been, in chronological sequence: a settlement of the Carpetani, the Celtic tribe the Romans found here and defeated in 193 BC; a Roman city (Toletum, eventually home to one of the largest circuses in the entire Iberian peninsula); the capital of the Visigothic Kingdom (6th century AD); an Arab city (Tulaytula) after the Muslim conquest of 711; and finally, since 1085, a key Christian city of Castile, eventually serving as the temporary imperial capital under Charles V, until Philip II chose Madrid (1561). That's roughly 2,000 years of everyone wanting to live on the same hill.
Toledo was home to a brief but remarkable convivencia in the medieval period, where Muslim, Jewish, and Christian communities coexisted, sometimes uneasily, but with real social and intellectual exchange. The 12th-century School of Translators made the city a vital conduit for knowledge, translating Greek, Arabic, or Hebrew works into Latin, and reintroducing Aristotle and much of Islamic science and philosophy to Western Europe. Without Toledo, the Renaissance may have unfolded differently. Or not at all.
OK. Let’s level-set for a minute.
This level of historical detail - I admit - might be boring for most. Especially so for the “Tik Tok generation” that has an attention span measured in seconds, and a desire for details that barely goes millimeters beyond the surface. So if you’re in that category, go scroll a few Instagram posts and you’re done. For me, planning a trip, visiting a new place, exploring a new land, requires research. That research typically spans historical, cultural, and culinary spectrums. Without it, the experience has a lot less meaning. And the journey is not nearly as enjoyable. So if you stick with me, I promise to make this read both enjoyable and educational, in more than one sense.
I digress…Back to Toledo, if you’re still with me.
All of this context, the layers of civilization pressed together like geological strata, is precisely what makes the city's architecture so extraordinary. You find Mudéjar churches (Christian buildings constructed by Arab craftsmen, blending both traditions) next to Romanesque synagogues, next to Gothic towers, next to Islamic gateways. Nothing has been tidied up into a single narrative. The whole place is a beautiful, intricate mess of overlapping human history.
The Cathedral: The One That Made Medieval Architects Weep
The reason we're here, the reason anyone with any interest in Gothic architecture, medieval history, or extraordinary accumulated human achievement should be here, is the Cathedral. Officially the Catedral Primada de Santa María de Toledo. Unofficially, in the opinion of most scholars, the finest Gothic cathedral in Spain, and in the running for the finest in Europe.
It began under King Ferdinand III of Castile (1266) on the foundations of a site that had previously been a Visigothic church (6th century). It was later converted into a Moorish mosque (8th century), then reconsecrated as a Christian church when Alfonso VI reconquered the city (1085), with a wonderfully dramatic backstory: Alfonso had apparently promised the city's Muslim rulers that the mosque would remain intact. He then left Toledo on other business. In his absence, his wife Queen Constance and the Archbishop seized the moment, occupied the mosque, consecrated it as a church, and installed a bell in the minaret. By the time Alfonso returned, it was a fait accompli. He was reportedly furious. History records that he decided not to undo it. Politics. And an early lesson that one (even if king) should not go against a wife’s wishes ;-)
Construction of the current cathedral took 267 years (1226 - 1493) which sounds like an extraordinary amount of time until you walk inside and it all makes perfect sense. The statistics are staggering: 120 meters long, 60 wide, 44 high, five naves, 88 columns, 72 vaults, and 750 stained glass windows spanning six centuries of craftsmanship. Modeled on the cathedral at Bourges, France, it incorporates French High Gothic structure with a distinctively Spanish sensibility. More massive, more horizontal, more encrusted with accumulated decoration across the centuries.
Where to begin? The Main Chapel (Capilla Mayor) with its monumental gilded retable, real gold on wood, depicting the life of Christ in carved figures. It is the kind of thing that makes you stop walking entirely and just stare.
The Choir (Coro), with two tiers of elaborately carved walnut stalls depicting scenes from the final conquests of Granada, Ronda, Málaga, and Baza, at a time when those conquests were fresh news.
The Treasury (Tesoro), dominated by the Custodia de Arfe: a 16th-century processional monstrance (the gold vessel used for the consecrated host at Corpus Christi) made from 18 kg of pure gold and 183 kg of silver, bristling with 260 tiny figurines. It stands nearly three meters tall. It is wheeled through the streets of Toledo every Corpus Christi, which is either an extraordinary act of communal devotion or the most elaborate show of wealth in religious history, depending on your perspective.
The Sacristy is effectively a private mini-Prado museum: El Greco, Goya, Velázquez, Raphael, Caravaggio, Titian, Zurbarán, all in one room. All poorly lit, all crammed together in a way that suggests the 16th-century Church was not particularly worried about conservation norms. It is extraordinary. Toledo was El Greco's adopted city, and the works of the Greek-born painter (Doménikos Theotokópoulos, which explains why he went by "El Greco") are scattered throughout the cathedral and the city, his elongated, spiritually intense figures and electric use of color giving 16th-century Toledo a visual identity that still defines it.
And then there’s El Transparente, possibly the single most theatrically audacious piece of architecture in Spain. Created in the 18th century by Narciso Tomé, it involves cutting a hole in the Gothic vault above the high altar and installing a Baroque explosion of gilded figures, painted clouds, and sculpted angels around the opening, so that natural light floods down onto the tabernacle below. It is objectively insane. Gothic cathedral, Baroque skylight, angels tumbling through the gap between them. It should not work, but it’s magnificent.
A few practical notes: tickets are required (audio guide worth the extra few euros), and the €2.50 bell tower upgrade gives you access to the upper cloister level and a rooftop view of Toledo's historic center that should not be skipped. Unfortunately, it was closed during our visit.
Toledo: The Rest of It
The Alcázar looms at the high point of the city. A fortress with Roman roots, rebuilt as a royal residence by Charles V, devastated in the Spanish Civil War in 1936, and subsequently rebuilt as a military museum. It's an important piece of Spanish Civil War history, and the museum inside is said to be well-executed. For our itinerary (with several significant Alcázars ahead of us) we skipped it without regret.
On the word Alcázar itself: you will encounter one in essentially every city and large village in Moorish Spain. The word comes directly from the Arabic al-qasr, meaning palace or castle (which itself comes from the Latin castrum, which the Arabs borrowed from the Romans, which is a tidy metaphor for this entire part of the world). A pro tip for itinerary planning: the first Alcázar you visit will feel revelatory; by the fifth or sixth you'll have a calibrated sense of which is worth the time. More on this as we go.
The Plaza de Zocodover is Toledo's historic central square and social hub. The name is of pure Arabic heritage: sūq al-dawābb, "the market of the beasts," a reference to the livestock market that operated here in the medieval period. Today it's cafés, souvenir shops, and a steady flow of day-trippers from Madrid. It makes an excellent base for orienting yourself before striking off into the labyrinth.
The Puente de Alcántara, a 2nd century AD Roman bridge, modified by the Moors in the 9th century, further rebuilt in the medieval Christian period. Today a pleasingly weathered structure with a defensive tower at one end and a baroque gate at the other. It crosses the Tagus at the foot of the city and offers a fine view of the walls rising above. Worth the walk, worth the photo.
For lunch, I had done my research: El Trébol, Taberna Scala, Taberna La Esencial, El Botero, and Bar Ludeña were all on the scouting list. What we actually ate: jamón bocadillos from a local charcutería, standing up, leaning against a wall in an alley that smelled of bread and cured pork. No regrets whatsoever. This, too, will become a recurring theme.
The single most important practical note about Toledo: Do not attempt to drive within the old city walls (or any of the old cities in our itinerary, for that matter). The streets are medieval-narrow, mostly one-way, the historic center requires a special permit for vehicles and is physically impassable (not to mention the fines). The correct approach is to identify a car park close to your entry point and plug that address into your GPS. Not the Cathedral, not the Plaza de Zocodover, the parking. The one nearest the cathedral is just under the Alcázar. Parking Indigo, I believe, or Garaje Alcázar. You'll save yourself a remarkable amount of time and irritation.
And the final tip for anyone visiting Toledo with their own transport: before you leave, make the short 10-minute detour across the river to the Mirador del Valle and Mirador de Toledo. From the south bank of the Tagus, you get the view that makes it clear exactly why every civilization that passed through here wanted to hold this particular hill. The city rises behind its walls, the cathedral towers over everything, the Alcázar anchors the far end of the ridge, the Tagus curves below like a moat drawn by nature herself. It is one of the finest urban panoramas in Spain. Mandatory. Non-negotiable. One of those views that makes you stop talking mid-sentence. Do not skip it under any circumstances. If you forget this advice and drive past it, turn around.
Consuegra: Don Quixote’s Windmills Are Real. The Giant Is Debatable.
About an hour south of Toledo, still on the broad, flat plains of La Mancha, the road delivers a sight that manages to be simultaneously famous and still genuinely surprising in person: twelve white tower windmills cresting a ridge, a ruined medieval castle behind them, and the plains of Castile rolling to the horizon on every side.
Consuegra. The windmills. Don Quixote's windmills. Or at least the ones Cervantes probably had in mind when he wrote the scene in which the delusional knight-errant Don Quixote de la Mancha mistakes them for enormous giants and charges at them on horseback, lance leveled, with predictably painful results. The phrase "tilting at windmills" (meaning to fight imaginary enemies or pursue quixotic, futile causes) entered the language from this scene, this hill, arguably these exact white towers.
The windmills are real, original, and properly old. Built in the 16-17th century to grind grain, they were operated by miller families from father to son for generations. The skills and the machinery inherited like any other family business. They stopped working commercially only in the 1980s. Twelve of the original thirteen survive. Each has been given the name of a character from Cervantes' novel. Four still retain their interior grinding machinery. Two can be entered. The tourist office occupies one of them.
Standing on the ridge between the windmills and the crumbling 12th-century castle behind them, with the plains of La Mancha stretching in every direction and the wind coming in strong off the meseta, you suddenly understand the novel with a physical immediacy that no classroom reading can replicate. The silhouettes of the windmills against the sky, arms extended, slowly turning in the wind, are, at a certain angle, in a certain light, genuinely somewhat giant-like. The constant roar of the wind helps complete the picture. At this moment, Don Quixote doesn't seem quite as mad.
Is it touristy? Yes. Is it an Instagram destination? Pretty much. Is it worth the stop? Absolutely, especially as it falls naturally on the route south. Stretch the legs, take the photos, pretend to charge one with a lance. Then keep going.
Jaén: Olive Trees to the Edge of the World
Two hours further south, with the jet lag now making itself known with some insistence and requiring a caffeine jolt, we arrived in Jaén. The capital of the Spanish olive oil universe. A city that most visitors skip en route to Granada and Seville, and which therefore has the particular quiet dignity of a place that knows its own worth without needing to announce it.
A bit of context: Andalucía produces more olive oil than any other region in the world. More than all of Italy. More than all of Greece. Roughly 80% of Spain's olive oil (and Spain produces 40-45% of the world's olive oil) comes from Andalucía. The Jaén province itself (depending on the year) accounts for 45-70% of Spain’s production. Standing on any elevated point and looking out across the landscape, the scale becomes visceral: olive trees, in ordered rows, from the valley floor to the hills on every horizon, as far as the eye can follow. An estimated 66 million olive trees. It is one of the most remarkable agricultural landscapes in the world. Genuinely beautiful.
But first, despite the “energy meter” blinking red, before checking into the apartment, before dinner, before the sun went down, a quick drive up to Castillo de Santa Catalina. Because exhaustion is temporary. Views are forever. Especially the sunset kind. And especially across this extraordinary landscape.
The castle sits at the top of a hill above Jaén like a stone crown. Visible from miles away on a clear day. Getting there requires winding up a steep, narrow road through several switchbacks while the city falls away below and the olive groves expand toward the mountains. The castle began as a Umayyad Moorish fortress in the 8th century, was subsequently expanded by the Nasrid ruler Alhamar (the same man who started the Alhambra in Granada) and was captured by the Christian king Ferdinand III in 1246, on the feast day of Saint Catherine (Santa Catalina), hence the name. Legend has it that even before the Moors, Hannibal's troops built a watchtower on this exact spot during his Iberian campaigns. The site has been militarily important for the better part of two millennia.
Today, part of the castle complex houses a Parador, one of Spain's famous network of state-owned luxury hotels installed in historic monuments. A mid-century structure built in local stone, intentionally designed to blend into the castle silhouette when seen from below. Spend the night, if budget allows.
The viewpoint just behind the castle, free access, is the real objective at this hour. The evening sun was dropping fast, and as the light went golden and then orange, the panorama opened: the city of Jaén below, its cathedral visible even from here. Beyond it, rolling out in every direction to the Sierra Morena mountains on the northern horizon and the Sierra Mágina to the east, those “sixty-six million olive trees” gilded in evening light. A landscape that looks like it was designed with deliberate, patient care over the course of a thousand years. Which, give or take, it was.
After what felt like a genuinely meditative twenty minutes staring at it (which is about eighteen minutes longer than I usually spend standing still anywhere) we finally descended toward the place we rented for the night.
The apartment was perfectly placed: two hundred meters from the Plz. de la Constitución parking, a distance I had, in fact, specifically planned for (what can I tell you, efficiency is a love language). A quick negotiation with the thermostat (temps were dropping fast after sunset, and the Andalucían nights in early spring have genuine teeth) and then, without delay, to dinner.
Panaceite, a few minutes' walk away, was the choice; a small, welcoming restaurant where the menu tilts toward the best of the local pantry. And this is where the first genuinely revelatory eating experience of the trip happened: Berenjenas Fritas con Miel de Caña.
Let me describe this properly, because it deserves it: thin slices of eggplant, battered lightly and fried until crisp and golden, served with a drizzle of miel de caña, which translates as "honey of the cane" but is, in practice, a thick, dark, deeply caramel-rich molasses made from sugarcane. Not honey at all, despite the name. The combination of the bitter, slightly smoky eggplant and the sweet, almost treacle-dark syrup, with a thread of sea salt cutting through both, is one of those deceptively simple dishes that lodges permanently in the memory. We also had alcachofas fritas (fried artichokes, golden and earthy) and a couple of other tapas that I now struggle to recall because I was still thinking about the eggplant.
A couple glasses of Albariño, cold and bright and faintly briny, to wash everything down.
And here, immediately, one of the genuinely great features of this part of Andalucía: in the provinces of Jaén, Granada, and Almería, most bars and restaurants bring you a free tapa with every drink order. Not a token olive or a couple of chips, but an actual small plate of food, rotated with every round, substantial enough to count as a meal if you're judicious. It is one of the finest traditions in Spanish culture and a gift to the budget traveler and the calorie-indifferent alike.
After dinner, a short walk to the Cathedral, which we'd seen only at a distance from the hilltop, and which at night, lit by the silver wash of a near-full moon, looked quite unlike it did in daylight: more austere, more vertical, the baroque facade throwing shadows across an empty Plaza de Santa María. We stood there for a few minutes, letting the first day settle. Then we went to bed and slept like rocks. Which was needed, because day 2 required getting up early to go learn everything there is to know about olive oil.
Next: Day 2: Oro Bailén → Jaén Cathedral → Granada (olives, olives, more olives, and layered history)
Practical Notes: Day 1
Getting there: If flying into Madrid makes more sense logistically or financially (fares to MAD are frequently significantly cheaper than to Seville or Málaga) this day-one structure works well. Pick up the rental at the airport, drive directly into the city, park near the palace (the Campo del Moro underground car park on Calle de Segovia is convenient), and proceed on foot from there. GPS for the parking, not the palace entrance. But that’s only if you follow the same exact itinerary, which you don’t have to if there is no Palace conflict. Just drive straight out, head south, and keep Madrid (Royal Palace and all) for the end.
Palacio Real: Book in advance at entradas.patrimonionacional.es. Audio guide recommended. No backpacks inside (free lockers available). Open 10am–7pm (summer) or 10am–5pm (winter). Budget two hours (we did it in less, of course). The Royal Collections Gallery next door requires a separate ticket and could absorb another hour. A combined ticket is available.
Toledo: Train from Madrid runs frequently and takes 30 minutes (best option if not driving; there are many, many day-trippers from Madrid taking that option). For drivers: park in the southern hillside car parks, never attempt to navigate the old town by car. For lunch options: El Trébol, Taberna Scala, Taberna La Esencial, El Botero, and Bar Ludeña are all well-regarded; or follow the crowds; this works as well as any research. Cathedral: allow at least an hour (again, we did it in less). Skip the Alcázar if time is short and you have other Alcázars on the itinerary; do the Mirador del Valle on the other side of the river without exception.
Consuegra: About an hour south of Toledo on the A-4. Free parking along the road that heads up. Two windmills can be entered. Tourist office inside one of them. Twenty to thirty minutes is sufficient unless you want to explore the castle ruins as well.
Jaén: About 40 minutes south of the A-316 junction. Parking at Plaza de la Constitución is central and convenient. Castillo de Santa Catalina (opens at 10am) is accessible by car (free parking at top). We encountered people hiking up as well (we just didn’t have the legs, at the end of a very long day). The Parador de Jaén within the castle complex has a café/bar, if you need a stop. For dinner, Panaceite (Calle Bernabé Soriano) is excellent and reliably good for traditional Jaén cuisine. La Manchega, Dña. Estefanía, and Casa Vicente are other options in the center. Free tapas with every drink: yes, everywhere, always, order accordingly.
Parador de Jaén: if you have the budget and/or inclination to stay in one of the famed Paradors in Spain, in the old castle, just above the city: paradores.es/en/parador-de-jaen
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