Subject: Spain also! Andalucia buses
Hi, all Ziners!

I never gave a report to you all about my Egyptian trip in December. It was great and I can only say good things of Adventures Abroad, the company I used. Being a single, since there were no other single guys without rooms, I got a room for me without paying any extra. Someone in Travelzine commented earlier that Adventures Abroad were a little pricey, however, they include all tips in the price of the trip, except the tip to the Tour Leader and they also have a policy of not allowing local tour guides to stop the tour to take the group to shops. Our Tour Leader said that some local guide do not like leading Adventures Abroad groups because they can't stir the group to local shops for business during the tours. The Tour Leader also has to offer lectures and ours did, on Egyptian history and islamic culture. He was very knowledgeable and engaging. We did all the items in the tour and even more, such as Coptic Cairo, which was not in the original tour. The number of tourists was down and we had practically the whole ship on the Nile cruise for our small 12 persons group. The weather was pleasant, cool in the morning and evenings, but otherwise warm, without being hot.

Now, for my questions since I will be off to Spain at the end of April. Ziners, and Cavodonga, especially, I will be starting my tour in Barcelona, then Granada, Sevilla, Cordoba, La Coruna, and finally Madrid.

I am trying to find out whether anyone knows where the intercity bus stations are in Granada, Sevilla and Cordoba, that is, is it advisable to take the bus (Alsina Graells Company) from Granada to Sevilla and from Sevilla to Cordoba? Are the bus stations in town or all the way in the outskirts? In Brazil, it is cheap, fast, comfortable and relatively safe to travel by intercity buses, but sometimes the bus stations are not centrally located and one find oneself in the middle of nowhere.

The bus from Granada to Sevilla is not much cheaper than the train, so if the train station in Sevilla is more central, it is probably better to take the train.

However, I have seen that it is much cheaper to travel from Sevilla to Cordoba by bus, but by travelling by bus the money I save will be spent on expensive taxi rides to town? Or is it better to take the train and arrive right in town (I am assuming the train stations would be centrally located in town).

Now, something else for your information I found when trying to book flights with Spanair via the internet. Spanair would allow me to buy the tickets online, because it required 2 pieces of id. One being the credit card, and the other only Spanish id type cards, and explicitly the web site says that passports would not be accepted as id. So, I had to pass up a ridiculously priced airfare of 9 euros, yes, 9 euros, (one way) from Madrid to Coruna, because of this stipulation of not accepting passport numbers as id. I ended up booking with Iberia, more expensive tickets, which accepts passport numbers. I found strange that Spanair which is competing with Iberia, is probably loosing clients because of this stipulation, unless they feel that these low priced airfares should only be used by Spaniards, who may become repeat customers in certain popular routes. Nonetheless they lost my business...

Helio in Vancouver, BC