Tailor Made and Personalized Holidays

Lemon Valley Holidays has a worldwide reputation for creating tailor-made itineraries of Andalucía. We focus on a select number of destinations, and our years of exploring and organising holidays in these regions offer you an insight that you may otherwise miss; encompassing all you wish to see and do whilst making the most of your precious holiday time. We pride ourselves on providing an authentic experience for our clients using intimate and characterful hotels, local enthusiastic guides and creating itineraries that along with the main historical sights combine visits and activities that reveal the real Andalucía to you, avoiding the obvious tourist traps.

We want to thank you very much! The trip was extremely well organized and every step was delicately studied. We felt like Lemon Valley was showing us every street and monument; explaining the maps, holding our hand every step of the way whilst giving us the freedom to explore alone and discover every inch!
Nadim Koleilat from New York, USA on holiday for Christmas 2010

How we can make your experience unique...

Intimate Hotels: Once you have decided where to go; where to stay is the next major decision and its probably the most important one of your trip. We have a close working relationship with a wide range of hotels all over Andalucía; in the cities, rural villages, the mountains and the coast, and we will suggest accommodation to you based on your own personal preferences whether luxurious, boutique, or ramblingly rustic, and draw from our experience of the best places to stay in each area for your budget. Our clients favourite hotels are often the family owned, local establishments that are full of special touches and friendly, welcoming hosts. Often the most obvious place to stay in a city is certainly not the best and we always steer clear of faceless chains and any hotel that does not welcome our clients with open arms!

City Guides and Historical Monuments : Nothing makes a city come alive more than a local guide with a passion for their town. We can arrange guides for you in all the major cities for either a complete personal tour or just a morning stroll around the historical centre. We will pre-book your Alhambra Palace visit in Granada, (either independent or guided) and can also arrange guides for the Mezquita in Cordoba, the cathedral and Alcazar in Seville, the Picasso Museum in Malaga and much more...

Travel and Transport arrangements : Getting the travel arrangements right for your holiday, quite often makes the difference between a disaster or a success. Due to the dramatic landscape and remoteness of parts of southern Spain it is essential to pre-plan every move to see if the idea is feasible and if there is a better way around. Whether using the trains and busses, a self-drive rental car, a private chauffeur or a combination of all the above - a trip can be greatly enhanced by "clockwork" travel arrangements and for this we certainly are worth our weight in gold!

Restaurant reservations, flamenco Shows and bodega visits etc. : We have restaurants and tapas bars to recommend all over Andalucía which are taken from our own personal experiences and also from our clients who inform us of another "absolute gem" that they have found. We can make advance restaurant reservations from our suggestions or ones of your own, and we can also help you with reservations whilst you are actually here if you just give us a call.

An authentic flamenco performance can be found every night in Andalucía and we can pre-reserve your seats in some of the most atmospheric and intimate venues throughout the region. The area around Cadiz, Jerez de la Frontera and Sanlucar de la Barrameda make up the sherry triangle of Spain and here we can arrange guided tours and tasting around some of the most interesting and historical bodegas from the huge international "barons" of Jerez to the small local producers of coastal Sanlucar.

Cookery classes and gourmet excursions : Fancy having a trip to the local market and a cookery lesson with one of Spain's top chefs or maybe a guided tour around the most authentic bodegas of the city for traditional tapas and local wines. We can also arrange guided excursions to the gourmet "hotspots" of Andalucía including a "Jabugo Ham" production farm and a local vineyard and olive mill.

Independent and guided walking in the Sierras : A great way to see the real Andalucía is to take to the hills for a few days of walking and from a rural posada in the hilltop white villages you can either step out alone with the aid of detailed route notes and walking maps or be guided by a local walking expert who can show you their favourite trails.

Bird watching and nature excursions : The National Park of the Coto Doñana is one of the best bird watching experiences in Europe. It was initially the King of Spain's hunting reserve, but now it is a fiercely protected natural zone with entry restricted to licensed guides only. You can enjoy a 4x4 excursion through the sand dunes and lagoons or a full days guided birdwatching with a local expert. If cetaceans are your thing then the Strait of Gibraltar is one of the best places of the Mediterranean to see dolphins and whales from a glass bottomed observation boat.

When its more than just Andalucía... : When coming from further a field many clients visiting Andalucía are combining it with other parts of Spain or even Europe. We can combine any other part of Spain and Morocco into your itinerary plus help you with travel arrangements to the start of your Andalucía holiday and onward.........where ever it may be.

Morocco : Just across the Strait of Gibraltar, Morocco is only a step away from Andalucía and due to requests from clients wanting to combine the two, we have now built up a network of experienced local guides in the major Moroccan cities. Whether a quick overnight trip to Tangier, a few days in Marrakesh or a 7 night tour of the Imperial Cities, we can provide you with your own personal itinerary and registered guide who will be delighted to show you their home town and to introduce you to the customs and cultures of this exotic and ancient land.

Those little extras...

A personally prepared guide pack for your trip: Once your trip has been decided upon and all the elements are in place we will then begin to put together your own personal guide pack which will accompany your trip. Each area that you visit will have a section that includes historical background information, where to go & what to see etc., specialities of the area and recommendations of where to eat, ideas for excursions, the best museums and monuments to visit etc. Also included will be your vouchers for pre-booked visits and tours, city maps, driving maps train tickets, rental vouchers and more. Once you return home the guide pack becomes a wonderful "keepsake" to remember your holiday by.

Your special interests : From organizing a tour of the most scenic roads on a Harley Davidson motorbike to an intricate study into the lesser known historical Moorish sites; we have planned many original itineraries and will be delighted to run any special "theme" through your entire trip or simply to add in a few items of your special interest as required. We have contact with many local experts on a wide range of subjects from the dramatist Federico Garcia Lorca in Granada to a bird ringing expert in Gibraltar and if there is anything we don't already know enough about we will be more than happy to start researching on your behalf.

GPS Navigation systems : The cities of Andalucía can be a bit daunting to drive in so we prepare you as much as possible with maps, written instructions and a GPS navigation system as standard with any holiday that includes a rental car ensuring that finding your way in a foreign city does not become the one black spot on your holiday.

24 hour telephone assistance and mobile phone hire: We are always available to speak to you 24 hours a day when you are here on holiday for any advice or assistance that you may need or just to let us know how things are going. We have many clients who travel alone and this can be very reassuring for them to know we are always there.

A mobile phone really is an essential piece of equipment when you are travelling away from home, for you to call for assistance, receive calls from home and also if we need to contact you regarding your holiday plans at any time. However, receiving calls when you are abroad can leave you with astronomical phone bills at the end of the month so we now have a number of "pay as you go" Spanish mobile phones that you can rent which charge you local rates for any calls to Spain and charge you nothing to receive calls from home. If you get stuck without credit you can also phone us and we can also top up your phone wherever you are.

Below are a few examples of itineraries we have arranged to help get your imagination flowing...

Whistle-stop Andalucía... One client from the USA only had a week to pack all that they could into their time in Andalucía. So after flying into Malaga and visiting the new Picasso Museum they collected their hire car and headed off to Granada to stay in a converted Moorish mansion in the medieval Albaicin district of the city. After a pre-booked full day at The Alhambra Palace they then discovered "down town" Granada its huge cathedral, Royal Chapel and Arabic like "souks". On to Cordoba for a night in a converted palace just 40 metres away from the great mezquita and then to Seville where they enjoyed an authentic flamenco performance and delicious local cuisine in our recommended restaurants; they even found the time for some hill walking with the help of our route notes and maps in a nearby sierra, spending their last night in the hilltop white village of Grazalema.

The big 2 week tour...Two couples on their first visit to Spain from Australia, arrived to Barcelona and explored the city for a few days with an extra guided mini-bus trip to the stunning Montserrat monastery. They then took the high speed AVE train to Madrid where that evening they enjoyed a fun group tapas tour around the city's most atmospheric bars. The next day sightseeing with a visit to the Prado Museum and finally a day trip on the train to Toledo. Taking the AVE again they headed south to take their time over Andalucia, visiting all the major cities with a day free in each city to relax and wander - plus hiring a car for a few days so they could stay in some of the more out of the way, authentic villages. Finally they finished in Granada, where their last night was spent having dinner overlooking the floodlit Alhambra. They flew home from Barcelona and later commented to us that this was the best trip of their lives!

Moorish Andalucía and Morocco... This epic journey through history took one British couple to the most interesting and well preserved Moorish sites in Andalucía with a narrative history running through their personally prepared guide pack which explained everything along the way. We found authentic converted mansions and palaces for their accommodation and provided a packed itinerary which covered all the major Moorish sights plus many hidden away gems that are not on the beaten path. They then took the high speed ferry across The Strait of Gibraltar where they were met by our fantastic guide in Tangier (everybody loves him!) - after spending the night in a riad in Tangier and visiting the local spice markets they were taken by luxury car through the mountains to visit the Berber villages before moving on to Fes. In Fes they stayed in a stunning riad in the medina and spent two days exploring the city with a private guide before taking a direct flight from Fes back to the UK.

Green is beautiful... A family group from the UK wanted to leave as smaller "carbon footprint" as possible after their holiday to Andalucía so took the train from London to Granada (via Paris and Madrid), and then toured the whole of Andalucía using trains, boats and buses. Generally this would limit tourists to only seeing the major cities, but with some careful planning and local knowledge it is possible to visit even the most remote mountain villages and they loved the experience of travelling with the locals and on some pretty hair-raising roads! They visited the city of Cadiz by boat and coincided with the world famous "carnaval" and also met up with local guides in the cities for walks around the major points of interest.

Short cuts to...

Unique experiences

Those little extras

Example itineraries

Flights information

Client's Comments

Marjorie & Ronald Pinkerton Tour of Barcelona & Andalucia March 2011 Canada

What a wonderful holiday we have just spent in Barcelona and Andalusia largely thanks to your help. You responded immediately to our questions and requests on email resulting in a tailor made trip for the two of us. When we received your package on arrival in Barcelona with not only the practical materials for each location with train & bus tickets, maps of each city & instructions about each event you had planned but material that highlighted the cultural and historical aspects of each city – we were delighted with it. You little bound guide on our trip was a treasure. All the hotels were excellent, each different & charming & such wonderful locations.

Andrew Freeman USA October 2010

What a holiday! We arrived back safely last night –and can't begin to thank you for all you did to make our holiday so amazing.

The trip was spectacular – and we know it couldn't have happened without your guidance and recommendations.

From the hotels to the tours and all the details in between—everything was just great. Thanks also for lending an extra hand in the lost luggage mishap.

We will surely recommend Lemon Valley for all of our friends headed to Andalucía.

In the meantime we also wanted to know what other areas you specialize in for next year!

Thanks again for all and while we don't have plans to be back there soon, let us know if you make it out to San Francisco.

Richard Stackhouse UK April 2009

This is to thank you very much again for all the care and attention you put into organising our recent holiday which I must say surpassed our wildest expectations! We knew we would love Andalucia and the superb weather helped, but we really appreciated all your wonderful extra touches.

The tours of Granada and Seville were excellent value. Conception was lovely! These should be compulsory as we were able to orient ourselves, locate the sights, and more importantly learn of the culture and history in a way that guide books don’t convey.

The Tapas Tour was fantastic fun; we had a great evening, felt at the end we really understood tapas, and tasted iced sherry, some excellent wines. Roger was an excellent source of local knowledge and equally happy to discuss politics and history. We learned a lot about the essence of Andalucia in an extremely pleasant manner.

The relaxing Turkish bath was perfectly timed. We had rather overdone the walking and seen two ruined baths – so we greatly enjoyed the massage in preparation for the next day’s sightseeing.

The Flamenco show was also very well chosen. Friends of ours (one of whom is a dancer) warned us of poor flamenco shows, and we were very well impressed with the quality of the show, the liveliness of the participants and the variety of the dancing. I only wish I understood more of the songs!

The hotels you chose were exactly the sort we like – central and comfortably quirky!

Alison Evans Australia April 2009

Our travels in Andalucia were wonderful. We have the most marvellous travel tales and memories. Food, people, countryside and history made it all an inspiring holiday.

Your guidance in creating our trip as a combination of staying in small villages and also experiencing a self guided walking tour out from Grazelama made for perfect variation and interest.

It has been enjoyable dealing with Lemon Valley Holidays right from the very first email I received. This is why I chose Lemon Valley as your emails were always personal, chatty and informal - sounded as though you really cared about our trip - and this is exactly how it seemed while we were on the road - everything was very personal; from the perfect car to suit our needs, the wonderful boutique accommodation which we had dreamed about down to the restaurant.

Greg White Australia June 2008

Hi Nicola & Danielle, Thank you both for organising such a wonderful holiday in beautiful Andalucía! From the outset you were very helpful, but when we received the detailed package we realised how completely you'd arranged everything, and we were at no stage disappointed. The hotels were gorgeous; the walking tours just right, informative but not too long; and the transport arrangements, maps and other information 'spot-on'. We have kept the pack as a memento of a wonderful experience and a most professional organisation which we have already been recommending to others. Kind regards, Greg & Allyson.