Please sign in to post.

Winter travel. 19-day Iberia and Morocco, or 14-day Central Europe?

Posted by (Portland, OR, USA) on

I am currently looking at some travel packages and plan to take a large trip sometime in late-January to early-February. I originally wanted to do a large East Coast USA trip from Miami to NYC. However given the current US government administration and political climate here, I decided against that idea and instead take a large Europe trip in winter. For this large European trip, here are my options:

  1. 14-day Central Europe tour that goes to Germany, Poland, Czechia, Austria and Hungary while traversing through a part of Slovakia. Tour starts in Warsaw and goes to Krakow, Budapest, Vienna, Prague and ends in Berlin.

  2. 19-day Spain, Portugal and Morocco tour that starts from Madrid and goes to Portugal and then back to southern Spain, then crossing a large body of water to get to Morocco and exploring a couple half of the trip in Morocco ending in Marrakech. Tour in Madrid and major cities of Porto, Lisbon, Seville, Tangier, Casablanca and ending in Marrakech.

I have recently been to Costa Rica, Peru and Bolivia which are all wonderful Spanish-speaking countries, so Spain might feel like too much for me. Although traveling to Portugal and Morocco will be very exciting for me. The weather will definitely be better in these countries than Central Europe in January. However I would also love to travel to Germany, Austria and Czechia.

Although the second tour option does't touch eastern Spain and the popular cities of Barcelona and Valencia, that is perfectly fine. I don't mean any disrespect to Barcelona, but I don't have much desire to go there anymore (even given the incredible architecture, culture, history and beaches). Especially when considering the anti-tourist protests, overtourism, the endangerment of the Catalan language, and the very nightmarish housing affordability crisis going on there.

Posted by
2256 posts

shark,
Even though Iberia shares their Spanish language, Spain and Portugal are nothing like Central and South America. I would choose option 2, for the weather alone. Plus, the three countries on the tour are all great places to visit! I won't go into details, but we loved our Spain/Portugal/Morocco trip. It was self-organized, not a tour, but saw Madrid, Toledo (day trip), Sevilla, Granada, Ronda (day trip), Barcelona, Tarragona (day trip), Lisbon, Evora (day trip), Porto, Tarifa and Tangier (day trip). We were gone about 3 1/2 weeks , used a car part of the time and took the train sometimes, plus the ferry to Tangier. We even drove through Gibraltar and had a drink in an English pub.

Lots of fun, good food, beautiful cities and towns, variety (Spain and Portugal are not each other's clones!), wonderful art and architecture galore, and a history guaranteed not to be boring!

Good luck in deciding!
Buen viaje!

Posted by
2256 posts

P.S. Took one flight, from Barcelona to Lisbon.

Posted by
23217 posts

I can see how politics / weather in central Europe, especiall of Slovakia and Hungary could be deal killers for you, and a lot of people. The countries of Morocco, Spain and Portugal might give you more of the sociopolitical / weather comfort you are looking for. Although I would research the anti-tourism protests and housing issues in the cities that the tour visits, you might be surprised. You also might want to research human rights issues in Morrocco; again, you might be surprised.

Add Reply

Please do not reply to violations of our Community Guidelines.