Five weeks by Car: Portugal, Spain, Southern Italy

I'll comment on the "fair share of coastline": you have two vastly different options from Lisbon to Barcelona, North / Atlantic Coast and South / Atlantic then Med Coast.
North is cooler, greener, with a more dramatic coastline. It can take you through the Douro and Rioja wine growing regions.
A southern route will be hot, still uncomfortably so inland in Andalucia. Some long stretches of coast are over developed. But it lets you discover the likes of Évora, Sevilla, Granada...
Choice is yours! I personally have a soft spot for my ancestors' Northern Spain, but the choice is not an easy one, you can't go wrong either way.

I think balso's right; you basically have to choose between the northern route and the southern route through Spain. The country's too large to cover from north to south in the time you will have. With time-consuming Barcelona as a given, I'd suggest the north and would not expect to get as far south as Madrid/Segovia/Toledo. Northern Spain has less efficient public transportation, so the car will be a real advantage there (not in Barcelona, obviously). Plus there's the weather situation, though your best chance of beach weather along the northern coast of Spain would be in mid-summer, I believe.

You're going to need another trip to Spain! In fact, you're probably going to need to choose between giving short shrift to Portugal or not seeing even northern Spain very comprehensively.

Perhaps you already have some must-see places sketched in?

Five weeks is great. We did a four week drive tour of Wales and England in 2017 that was one of our best trips ever.

Here are some tips that may assist in planning for your driving on your tour.

1) You will make better time on the express highways (we call them interstates in the USA, autobahns in Germany) but you won't see the scenic places so much. When you do take the back roads, you travel time will increase. There will be areas that you want to do the fast moving and others where you want more scenic.

2) Parking is a huge issue, especially in larger cities. You may wish to not rent one car, but split up your car rentals, when you are in a large city. Parking may cost you a lot and limit where you can stay. We didn't visit London or a major city (Cardiff and York were our largest cities), so we found parking most everywhere that was free with our small hotels or B&Bs. Have coins so you can pay for parking or the toilet.

3) Try not to plan a drive from one city to the next that takes more than 2 hours. We did that pretty well, however, we did have three days of our 28 where we did 4-5 hour drives. I found a great book Back Roads of Britain that helped me immensely. Perhaps there are Back Roads books of Portugal and Spain.

4) If you are going in September, you need to start booking ASAP, but AFTER you do your research. I love TripAdvisor which has a feature that allows you to check hotels in a city on a map that allows you to hold the cursor over the hotel location and it gives the price.

5) Car rental, recommend making sure your car can hold the luggage you will take. Also, get a navigation system with the car or have a GPS with the Europe maps.

Your route would start in Portugal. You will love this country, the people are just wonderful and while I love Spain, Portugal is just a notch above for friendliness.

I would plan on 7-8 days in Portugal, 14 in Spain and the rest in Italy.

LISBON

3 days in Lisbon to see the city, add more days for day trips to Evora and Sintra. After that, head up to Porto and stop in Obidos (small city with ancient Roman walls). Then to Nazare on the coast. There is a beach there. Then to Porto. 2 days in Porto.

The In Patio Guesthouse is wonderful, if you can get a room there, it is the very best B&B ever. Parking may be an issue, but this place is special.

Then head east up the Douro River Valley, very scenic with hills filed with vineyards. Then into Spain at Salamanca. You could stay there, then head toward Madrid, stopping in Segovia on the way.

Consider dropping your car in Madrid, your won't need one there and picking up another after 3-4 days in Madrid. Toledo, a few miles south of Madrid is a must (it was the ancient capitol of Spain). You can do it on a day trip from Madrid on the train.

Next, head down to Seville (this city is a must see), plan on 3 days there minimum. If you have time stop in Cordoba either in route, before or after Seville. You might even spend one night there. Head to Granada to see that wonderful city and the Alhambra, minimum 2 nights.

Some may say go to Malaga and do the beach at the Costa del Sol. Sorry, we did that and weren't impressed by the beaches there. There are nicer beaches up around Barcelona.

((You can decide to skip Porto and the Douro Valley and Salamanca and head to Seville from Lisbon--then you could go to Madrid after Seville, Cordoba and Granada-- Take at look at what time you have for Portugal and Spain. Porto is great, but you can always come back if you decide to do it this way))

Next Barcelona. Plan on 3-4 days there and more if you stop at the beaches in the area. Again, you don't want to have to pay for parking your rental car, so consider dropping your car here.

Not sure how you get to Italy, consider flying or a cruise (NCL has one from Barcelona to Rome--other cruise lines as well as ferries))
Rome, plan on 4-5 days there. continued

Continued
ROME, our favorite area to stay is around the Pantheon, north of the city center. Look for small hotels or B&Bs there.

Consider a couple of days in Florence, you can take the train. Driving in Italy is a problem, it is so easy to get very expensive tickets by entering a city were cars aren't allowed or driving 2 MPH over the speed limit. Consider not renting a car at all in Italy. Not sure what you want to see in Southern Italy, but the obvious choice is the Naples area. Don't stay in Naples, I recommend Sorrento or the island of Capri. There is a ferry that serves both places. Also, a train goes to Sorrento.

Take in Pompeii, the Amalfi Coast, Capri and Sorrento. You could easily spend 4-5 days there.

You can do much of you own touring throughout the entire trip, but consider checking for local tours from time to time. We have used Viator for local tours. Viator finds the tour for you, they don't operate the tour. You can book and pay for them in advance. Look for a tour of the Amalfi Coast, which is hard to do on your own.

You mentioned beaches, but most of the nice beaches in Europe are not very close to key cities. Even the famous beaches on the French Rivera are nothing special.

Here are a couple of my trip reviews that I provide to demonstrate the planning required.
One is of our Portugal trip (we had a tour and river cruise).
The other is our Britain drive trip, I provide to show the needed planning.
 Portugal, the Douro River and a bit of Spain
http://www.cruisecritic.com/memberreviews/memberreview.cfm?EntryID=535267

28 days in Britain and Celebrity Eclipse home
https://www.cruisecritic.com/memberreviews/memberreview.cfm?EntryID=599139

Many, many thanks for all these, which we'll sit down and digest. Please keep them coming 😁. Just a couple of points. First, we have already organised the car. It's a Citroen euro-lease, rather than a rental and we will have it for the 5 weeks. We've booked a Citroen C4 Picasso, which is what we've used the previous two times. We love it! We'll probably look to stay on the outskirts of major cities and get public transport in

Secondly, we won't be going north of Rome this time. We've done bits of the north, incl Florence, Venice, Milan etc previously. Recommendations for Sicily and Sardinia especially welcome.

Geovagriffith - your suggestions fr Portigal look greate, incl Inpatio; we'll use that as our default.

I think the advice to decide between Northern and Southern Spain is on the money. I think we'll flag Madrid and south and head north out of Portugal and along the coast, through Basque country to Barcelona. I get we'll need 3-4 days there. Any recommendations for towns or beaches or acommodation there would be appreciated. This looks lovely. http://metrokua.com/

Phil

To me, Sicily deserves at least 2 weeks with a car if you want to see its highlights, which are both many and widely scattered. I don't see how you'll have anything close to that much time, so I'd suggest substituting Puglia, which is very interesting but doesn't require as much time. Note, however, that both Sicily and Puglia are brutally hot in mid-summer (voice of experience). Are you sure you want to travel through southern Italy at that time of year? I'd much prefer to focus on Portugal and northern Spain, then hit the Dolomites on the way to your car drop-off. But that would mean no ferry.

Since you plan to go north from Porto, I suggest that you consider stopping at Santiago de Compostela. It is worth at least half a day, perhaps more.

For something different than the cities and beaches, you might want to spend several days in the Pyrenees Mountains just north of Barcelona - They are gorgeous.

It's a Citroen euro-lease, rather than a rental and we will have it for the 5 weeks. We've booked a Citroen C4 Picasso, which is what we've used the previous two times. We love it! We'll probably look to stay on the outskirts of major cities and get public transport in

We did the Renault lease program, which is similar to the Citroen one. We also picked up the car in Lisbon and dropped it off in Madrid. Be aware that if the car has a red license plate, criminals know this means you have a leased car and most likely have valuables in it. We were targeted by a gang in Barcelona who used someone on a motorcycle to slash our tire while we were at a traffic light on a main drag. Then when we pulled off the avenue to a spot where we could change the tire, they followed us and robbed us. The Spanish police told us this happens day in and day out, especially in areas where tourists are known to visit.

As a result, from then on we always stayed outside a major city and took public transport in. That worked out fine.

We had no problem finding hotels with parking, sometimes free parking and sometimes for an extra 12-20 Euros. However, often the parking was underground, where the turning radius of the ramp was very tight and the spaces were very small. So, get the smallest car you think you can be comfortable in. There was one hotel that had a car elevator going to the garage where we had no more than 3 inches of clearance on either side of the car to fit into the elevator. I would have had a nervous breakdown getting the car into the elevator, but my husband managed it well and without too much cursing.

We traveled in September and did not have any trouble finding same-day accommodations, booked in the morning for that night.

One more thing. Study up on the highway toll system for each country before you go. Look for Youtube videos or images showing the signs for the various toll-station lanes and what they mean. This was not at all self-explanatory for us, and in both Spain and France we ended up having to pay penalties for having gone through the wrong lane.

Have a great trip! Despite being robbed, we enjoyed our road trip a lot!

Thanks again everyone - we'll have a look at those suggestions re Northern Spain. If we stuck to our rough plan, we'd be in Sicily/Southern Italy in late September/early October. Not mid-summer. Would it still be that hot then?

Marcia - thanks for yours, especially the robbery tips. :)

Some other Northern Spain coastal suggestions:
- Santiago de Compostela: yes, a must-see. The coast immediately to the west is very scenic too, I recommend driving towards Muros and Finisterre Cape, stopping at Carnota beach on the way.
- Further east, Cudillero is a beautiful little harbor village, a recommended stop! Had a great stay at hotel la Casona de Pío years ago, and reviews seem to confirm that it is still great
- You probably have time to spend 2-3 days in the Picos de Europa region. Potes is a good place to stay to explore that area.
- The area between San Vincente de la Barquera and Suances (including Comillas & Santillana del Mar) is very pretty and worth a stop if time allows
- The stretch of coast between Santander and Bilbao is less interesting to me. Don't hesitate to take the A8 highway straight from Torrelavega to Bilbao.
- The hotel you link is in a beautiful place, I really like Lekeitio.

SO many things to see :-)

Hi all,and again thanks.

After focusing a bit more closely, we have decided we were planning to bite off more than we can chew.

So we have largely flagged away any thoughts of doing Italy this time. So we'll have 5 weeks in the car for Portugal and Spain. We need to start in Lisbon and, probably, finish in Barcelona though it could be Madrid.

We will certainly still do the northern/Basque coast of Spain. Do any of you wonderful people have any further bright ideas given this change?

Phil

I'm glad you've decided to limit the geographical extent of the trip.

I haven't been to Portugal recently but remember enjoying Viseu and the market in Barcelos.

Across northern Spain I liked all of these places, principally for their picturesque architecture: Tui (small), Combarro (small and touristy), Cambados (small and touristy), Pontevedra, Santiago de Compostela, A Coruna, Betanzos, Leon, Astorga (modernista architecture), Oviedo, Picos de Europa area (lovely scenery; I'd consider it a must on a trip of this length; include the old--now touristy--stone town of Potes), Santillana del Mar (very cute, very touristy; near the Altamira Cave), Burgos, Bilbao, San Sebastian (though just one day in town was enough for me), Hondaribbia, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Laguardia, Olite, Puigcerda (the Cerdanya Valley can be very hot but has some old villages ignored by tourists), La Seu de Urgell, Zaragoza (hot!), Girona, Besalu, Cadaques, Figueres (really only for the Dali Theatre and Museum), Sitges (if you like art museums) and of course Barcelona.

I have been limited to places reachable by public transportation, so there are big gaps in my experience. Others have been able to get up into the Pyrenees and will be able to suggest good options in that area. I am not saying the places on my list are the best ones in northern Spain, just that it's worth researching those that are near other places you decide to visit.

Two cities I thought were comparatively dull: Vigo and Santander. Not bad, just without apparent-to-me reasons to go there, except that Santander has at least one great beach.

Sardinia! I don’t know how much time you’ll plan on one of my favorite islands - along with Corsica, Sicily and Manhattan. If only for 4 or so days, drive from the ferry to Alghero and visit the Grotte di Nettuno and walk the ramparts overlooking the sea in town. Head down the Coast road to Oristano and visit the Roman ruins on the Sinis Peninsula. Then head to Càgliari visiting the fantastic Su Nuraxi, a UNESCO World Heritage site in Burimini on the way. Càgliari has a number of nice museums, a beautiful Cathedral and an impressive Belvedere to wander. From Càgliari, you can hop the ferry to Sicily. Beaches? All up and down the coast and they’re spectacular!

I spent two weeks driving all over Sardinia and Corsica, a lovely vacation. If you want info about lodging, send a PM.