Too aggresssive?
Well, I'm now thinking of extending our stay in Spain to 9 nights in order to give us more time. I'm thinking of the following general itinerary:
1) Arrive by air in Granada. Stay 2 nights. Visit the Alhambra; we've been told by friends that this is not to be missed.
2) Rent a car and drive to Alicante region and/or further up the coast to Denia and spend 4 nights. Details of exactly where we stay and what we see during this phase are to be figured out later. According to Google, driving time from Granada to Alicante is a little over 3 hours.
3) Continue on to Valencia and return car; Google driving time is around 2 hours from Alicante region to Valencia. Stay 3 nights and use mass transit to get around. Fly out of Valencia.
This seems reasonable to me, but I'm trusting in the Google driving time estimates. If they are off by, say a factor of 2, due to summertime traffic (we'll be there the last 10 days in July), then I may need to rethink this. Any feedback is appreciated.