Seville to Marrakesh

Okay, I’ve booked the big flight. Now I have to focus on the flights within Europe. Luckily, I don’t need a lot. This isn’t Asia where the long distances between significant locations beg for me to fly. Europe is much smaller. I can get around on buses and trains.

I’m planning on Morocco being my first stop. I’m interested in flying down to Marrakesh and then heading back to Barcelona by land. I’m thinking: Tangier, Fez, Rabat, Casablanca, and Marrakesh in Morocco and then Gibraltar, Ronda, Malaga, Costa del Sol, and Cuenca while I travel through Spain on my way back to Barcelona. That’s my prlimiary plan at this point.

The problem is, as always, cost. I’m trying to find the lowest possible cost while still trying to maintain a relative degree of comfort, safety, and sanitation and that’s the hard part.

The plan was to go from Barcelona to Marrakesh. The most direct and straightforward route would have been to have flown to Marrakesh and then take the train to Casablanca, Rabat, Fez, and Tangier i Morocco. Then I would cross the Straingt of Gibraltar and go to Gibraltar, or The Rock as I like to call it. Fro tehre I would go to Ronda, Spain ad then to Malaga, Spain and then to Barcelona.

But airfare prices didn’t work out like I wanted. I looked at a lot of combinations and I finally settled on flying from Barcelona to Seville for $29.62. I thought I would work things backwards. I then got a ticket from Fez, Morocco to Barcelona for $46.59. It looks like I may do some backtracking.

I wound up with twenty-eight days in the Andalucia – Morocco segment of the trip. It looks like I may do Seville, Cordoba, and Granada besides Ronda and Malaga Spain. We’ll see. I would have liked to have done them end of the trip in Andalusia instead of doing Morocco at the end. There are some places in Andalusia I would have liked to have revisited. While I can do this in the front end, it would have been nice to have had that flexability at the end.

But I can’t complain. I have my main transportation issues settled for a twenty-eight day segment of the trip for the sum of $76.21. I’m expecting the buses in Spain and the trains in Morocco to run about the same amount of money.

It was a good planning day even if it didn’t turn out the way I wanted.