2 weeks in Northern Spain

How many nights will you have, on the ground, not counting travel days?

Your itinerary is very ambitious IMO... 9 destinations for 12-13 days?

You may consider skipping Carcassonne & concentrate your time in Spain.

If you leave your itinerary as is, you will be spending much of your time driving form one destination to the next, instead of actually spending time at said destination.

Is it possible to change your outbound or inbound flight to avoid backtracking to Barcelona?

Have you considered taking high speed trains (AVE) to some of your destinations?

You may want to get an idea of how long it will take to travel from point A to point B by using this helpful website:https://www.rome2rio.com/

San Sebastian is a beach town; their Old Town is just a few blocks and can be seen in an hour or two - certainly in a half day. I was there in October last year and there wasn't very much going on even then, and the temps were still in the 70 F range. I would expect there to be even less beach action in November - it will most certainly be way to cold to go in the water or possibly even to just sit on the beach except in mid-afternoon. That said, if you are only going there for the food, I heartily recommend that you have reservations anywhere "special" you plan to eat.

As for the rest of your proposed itinerary, even for the briefest of visits I would plan to stay two nights each in Bilbao, Salamanca, Valencia, and Zaragoza. Toledo can be done in one full day of heavy duty sightseeing, although almost everyone on this forum recommends spending at least one night there to experience the town after the day trippers and the tour busses have gone. Most everyone agrees that Segovia can be visited as one full day daytrip - get there before noon and leave after dinner.

Barcelona is a different story altogether. My personal opinion is that you can do a fair job of seeing the major sites there if you allot four or five days. This assumes you will not spend excessive amounts of time in galleries/museums and that you minimize your out of the city daytrips. Many of the major sights in Barcelona allow for reservations and my recommendation is that you make them for such places as Sagrada Familia, the Picasso Museum, the Catalan Music Hall, and some of the other Gaudi sites.

How long was your trip last year? If it was 2 weeks, have you considered that 4 cities in 2 weeks is very different from 9 cities in 2 weeks? I admit that the driving isn't as bad as I thought it would be--ViaMichelin estimates a total of about 32 hours (without any stops, of course). But all that moving around...

I've been to all your Spanish destinations except Valencia, and there's not one where I'd want to have just half a day (which is what you'd get in most cases with a one-night hotel stay). It looks to me like you are trying to squeeze 3 weeks of sights (at least) into a 2-week trip.

Barcelona is a large city with an extremely large number of attractions. I spent 10 days there last month and left things undone, just to give you an idea. I can't imagine having less than two full days there (not counting a jet-lagged arrival day), so it needs a minimum of the last 3 nights of your trip, and Enric will be along at some point to tell you that is criminally short.

I don't know Valencia at all; I'd say read about the museums there (which I think are a big part of the draw) and figure out how much time you'll want.

Of the remaining cities my favorite (I liked them all a lot) was Toledo. In addition to having a large historic district to cover, Toledo has many sights I wanted to enter, so I spent several days there. Some tourists make a day-trip from Madrid, probably just visiting the Cathedral and the museum and walking around for a few hours. Which kind of traveler are you?

I don't know how to distinguish among Segovia, Salamanca and Zaragoza in terms of time required. I guess if pressed I'd say a bit less time in Zaragoza and a bit more in Segovia. I preferred the architecture in Segovia to that in Salamanca for sure, but we're talking personal preference here, and there's a lot of ground to cover in Salamanca's historic district.

As for Bilbao and San Sebastian, both cities have attractive historic districts. At least in summer, SS's is much livelier/more touristy. Tons of tapas bars, etc.; it's definitely the place to be if you like that sort of thing. Bilbao's historic district may be larger, and it was far from dead, just not swarming with tourists. Both cities have very nice early-20th century architecture and are pleasant for wandering around. SS has the San Telmo Museum; Bilbao has the Guggenheim and the Bellas Artes. San Sebastian has a gorgeous beach, but I'm not sure you'd even want to walk along it in November, when I'm guessing it would be gusty and cold. I think you might pick one of those two cities, since your time is so short. Alternatively, you could stay put in one of the and day-trip to the other without changing hotels.

I'd suggest checking the historical weather patterns for your planned destinations. I see that San Sebastian gets an average of over 7" of rain in November (Bilbao's at 5.8"), which sounds like a lot. SS gets an average of 96 hours of sunshine for the entire month (Bilbao's at just 88).

I'm not sure your other cities will be much warmer than the Basque Country, but they may be drier (I haven't checked). If so, I'd be inclined to focus my November time away from the northern coast. But, as I've said several times before, weather matters a lot to me. A lot of people are far more tolerant, and it helps that you plan to drive.

jun.marro -

One other place I forgot to mention is Pamplona. If you are traveling between Barcelona (or Zaragoza) and the San Sebastian/Bilbao area, it would make sense for you to spend a bare minimum of one night in Pamplona and visit that city.

Another addition to this and my earlier response to your request. In the last two years I have visited all of the cities you asked about. Here are the numbers of nights I spent in all of them. Keep in mind that for all of them except San Sebastian, Bilbao and Salamanca these visits were not first visits to the cities.

Zaragoza 3 nights - you can see most of the sights there with a 2 night stay, but it is just such a net city that you will enjoy another night or two to just hang around it, perhaps visiting Los Tubos for cerveza
San Sebastian 3 nights - this was probably one night too many
Bilbao 2 nights - I should have taken I night away from San Sebastian and added it here
Salamanca 3 nights - about right
Toledo 3 nights - about right
Segovia was a daytrip from Madrid by train
Valencia 3 nights - I left a lot unseen and would have gladly spent 1 or 2 additional nights
I also spent 2 nights between Madrid and Valencia in Cuenca seeing their old town and the "hanging houses"
Barcelona 10 nights - and this did not include any day trips outside the city
, although I did spend most of one of those days just sitting on the beach at Barcelonetta working on my tan ...

I agree with the previous posters, you have too few days to visit all of your desired destinations. You are trying to cover too much territory in too few days. Spain is a big place and you will be spending a large part of your time in your car traveling from town to town. I think you need to prioritize and eliminate a few of these cities. Maybe save Salamanca, Segovia, Toledo and Valencia for a future trip since you are tied into arriving and departing from Barcelona. All beautiful destinations and I know you want to see them but one day in these places is not enough to do them justice and they are so far from your other chosen spots. Maybe eliminate Carcassonne and include some of the Spanish castles/fortresses near Zaragoza, or northern Spain. I suggest you rethink your itinerary.

Thank you all for the very informative and useful suggestions! Yes, I was wrestling with the itinerary myself. Thank you, Jack, for the itinerary suggestions and everyone else for your great advice.

So glad I found this forum. We are soooooo excited! Thank you!!

Jun, should you decide to cut back the extent of your trip and spend more time in fewer places, you might try to squeeze in a day-trip to Teruel, which is about 2 hours south of Zaragoza. I found it particularly interesting because of a combination of multiple mudejar (Moorish-influenced) towers and some art nouveau architecture. It's off the American-tourist path, for sure. It was a lot of fun just to wander around.

I enjoyed Tarazona, too. It's smaller and only about a 1-hour drive from Zaragoza (not in the same direction).

Acraven, thanks for putting in your link for Tarazona, or else I would have thought you meant Tarragona and misspelled it!

I knew they were two different places, but I had to really stop and think every time I started to ask a question about or buy tickets to Tarazona. Zaragoza, Tarragona, Tarazona. Makes my head hurt.