14 Nights in the Iberian Peninsula - Itinerary Help

Do you need to spend your final night in Barcelona before your flight home?
I'd even up Madrid and Lisbon to 4 nights each.

If you are flying in & out of Barcelona, and this is your first trip to Spain, I'd spend the 13 days there & save Portugal for your next trip :-)

Have you considered visiting Córdoba, Sevilla or Granada?
These are all amazingly beautiful cities & there is plenty to do & see to keep you busy for the duration of your trip.

You are planning to take a night train from Madrid to Coimbra, correct?

I can only assume that you are planning to fly from Lisbon to Barcelona, and for some reason you are not flying open-jaw, into Barcelona and out of Lisbon. If your flight from Lisbon is on the same ticket as the round-trip Barcelona flights, at least you will be able to rely on the issuing airline to resolve any issues - missed connection, lost baggage. If you are planning to buy the Lisbon-Barcelona flight separately, I recommend spending your last night in Barcelona. If you have any delay in getting to your trans-Atlantic flight, you are up a creek, so to speak. You'll have no recourse to either airline.

You mention automobiles. Are you planning to rent a car? For what part of your trip?

Great point on staying our last night in Barcelona to avoid a missed connection for our transatlantic flight. I suppose we have a couple of additional options, including reversing our itinerary so that Barcelona is last or adding the Lisbon - Barcelona flight (which we were going to book separately) to our ticket (and paying the change fee). I did consider Granada, Seville and Cordoba, but I am thinking we leave Andalusia for another trip and throw in Morocco and maybe Valencia.

Interesting point on evening up Lisbon and Madrid. I have heard anecdotally that Lisbon is very underrated and Madrid is very overrated. I was actually wondering if we should spend less time in Madrid.

While I have your attention, does anyone have any experiences from Barcelona, Madrid, Lisbon, Porto or Coimbra that we shouldn't miss? Thanks!

In response to Chani, we were planning on flying from Madrid to Porto, staying two nights and then taking a train from Porto to Lisbon. We would stop in Coimbra for a few hours on the way from Porto to Lisbon just to have lunch and see the University Library and old town.

We won't be renting a car, but will be using a plane or train for all of our connections. I hate the thought of driving on vacation, which is part of the reason we decided to leave the Algarve and Andalusia for another trip. The reference to a car was just a clumsy colloquialism.

Thanks for your help!

I would head straight to Lisbon on your arrival day and then reverse your itinerary to Barcelona.

Madrid has other options, like Segovia, that you may consider.
Five nights in Lisbon is a little heavy, given your trip length.

I don't want to throw a monkey wrench into the mix, but you can see the best of Andalucia by train. If you can't fly open-jaw into Barcelona and out of Lisbon (have you looked at the multi-destination option on airline sites?), you might consider Spain in one trip and Portugal in another. They just aren't well-connected by train and renting a car means driving back or paying a hefty drop-off fine.

If you choose to skip Portugal, I'd still recommend open-jaw into Madrid (or Andalucia if possible), ending in Barcelona.

The optimal route IMHO is to fly into Madrid, then Toledo, Cordoba, Sevilla, Granada, Malaga (optional), Barcelona. If you skip Malaga, then fly from Granada to Barcelona.

If you land in Madrid in the morning, go on to Toledo. It's a 30-minute train ride from the Madrid station. Madrid-Cordoba (about 2 hrs), Cordoba-Sevilla (less than an hour), Sevilla-Granada (3 hrs).

Back to your original plan. How much time you spend in Madrid depends on what you want to do there. If you are seriously into painting, you'll want a day for the Prado and another for the Thyssen and Reina Sofia museums. It's a modern city by European standards. You can have a very enjoyable time there. When it's compared to other Spanish destinations, it usually comes out a poor cousin. Last year I spend 4.5 days in Barcelona at the end of a trip and I'm going back next month, this time for a week, to try to see most of the sights I missed on the first visit, including day trips to Tarragona and Figueres. Portugal is still on me to-see list so I can't compare.