Hi.
We had such a wonderful trip to East Central Europe last summer, with the help of your fabulous suggestions, that we are already planning another European vacation.
Right now I'm looking for itinerary ideas. Our starting and ending cities are fixed, as we jumped on a seat sale and got a pretty good deal, we think. (Less than what we paid last year, which was also pretty good.) We are flying open jaw into Lisbon, Portugal and out of Nice, France in May. We know we also wish to see Madrid and Barcelona.
Our trip is 22 days (including travel days) and 20 nights. So, we are thinking 5 nights in each city, at this point, but I am wondering if we might want to distribute our time a little differently. We thought we'd fly between Lisbon and Madrid and between Barcelona and Nice, but take the train within Spain.
For side trips, we were thinking of Sintra, Toledo, Montserrat, Cannes, and Monaco.
We like architecture, art, museums, history, culture, churches, ruins, castles, natural beauty, and food. We are not interested in hiking, sports, etc. We are not going for beaches (it's May, after all), but would not be averse to a nice break on a beach on a warm day, either.
We love to walk around and explore, and we've loved every place we've been, so we aren't very fussy or jaded, but we do want to make the most of our time. Jet lag doesn't usually slow us down much, either, so we can plan to do a fair bit on our first day.
I welcome input and suggestions on our very preliminary itinerary. Thanks in advance!