16 Days Spain Itinerary for a first time visitor. We are a family with two teenagers.

Did you see the post today regarding water issues in Barcelona?

My preference is to overnight in Cordoba and Toledo. Both have plenty to do and is completely different in the morning before the day trippers come and nice again in the evening after they've left. That said, I can see your preference is to move around less.

Is the flight home from Barcelona already booked?
I found the beach near Malaga pretty uninspiring. Those near Cadiz looked more appealing.

Good plan, but you need more time in Seville.

Consider eliminating Malaga and adding a day to Seville and another to do Segovia day trip from Madrid.

Agree with Geo, and I'll add that Segovia is a wonderful day trip.

I think your time is short in Barcelona (the need to prebook timed entries at so many top sights makes quick visits there challenging) as well as in Seville.

It's fine to go to Granada before Seville. Either way works. It comes down to the (limited) train schedules into and out of Granada--though sometimes one of Spain's nice buses works. Take a look at the train departure times on Renfe.com to see whether they work for you.

Because of the way the express rail lines are laid out in Andalucia, you may find yourselves passing through Cordoba more than once as travel between Madrid, Seville and Granada (in any order), so it works to slot Cordoba into your itinerary at a variety of different points. If you treat it as a day-trip, you're correct to do the trip from Seville. However, you could also go to Cordoba between Seville and Barcelona, which would make the long train trip back to Barcelona somewhat shorter.

Thank you all for the wonderful suggestions.
I will definitely incorporate some of your wonderful ideas!
I saw the post today about the Barcelona water shortage... Now I am not so if I should visit Barcelona on this trip.
If I decide to skip Barcelona, what do you all recommend that I do instead?

1. Cadiz, and Pueblos Blancos?
2. Gibraltar and Tagier?
3. Just head to Mallorca for 5 days? Leaning towards Mallorca since my teens will be happy with beach time...

Thank you for your time!

Jeff

Forget Tangier, it would be a huge disappointment.

If you go to Morocco, visit Marrakesh and Fes.

If you cancel Barcelona, you really could use more time in Sevilla. I've not been to Mallorca but it does seem like a place where teens would be happy. If you go there, I'd skip any other beachy venues. You could make Toledo or Cordoba overnights. The pueblos blancos are charming so that'd be another great replacement.

Based on my research (no trip yet), there's a lot of sightseeing variety in Mallorca, as well as the nice beaches.

You could very easily spend all your time in Madrid and points south, but there's a risk of unremitting high temperatures down there in June, so I'm reluctant to suggest you spend all your time there. June 2022 and 2023 weren't as hot, but even early June 2021 was pretty unpleasant in Madrid:

Madrid weather -- June 2021 from timeanddate.com

Andalucia (especially Seville and Cordoba) is likely to be considerably worse than Madrid:

Seville weather -- June 2021

Since you're heading over so early in the month, it might turn out to be not so bad, but I've had the experience of multiple weeks in 90-degree weather (in southern Italy), and it was draining.