30-some days first time in Spain

Some quick comments (just my opinions):

• Barcelona needs more time, especially since it's your arrival point and that first day may prove relatively worthless. There are many sights in Barcelona that need to be pre-booked with time-specific tickets, which makes it impractical in blitz mode. To me, Barcelona needs more time than Madrid, and you have the opposite. I urge you to bump Barcelona up to 5 nights, and even then I think you'll regret having to leave so soon.

• It would be great to spend a couple of nights in Girona, but I understand that you want to have at least some time in Madrid while your son is with you.

• While in Madrid, I hope you'll have time for a day-trip to Segovia. I enjoyed a quick day-trip to Alcala de Henares, a nearby university town with a very pretty historic area.

• Between Madrid and Valencia, I urge a stop in Cuenca. If there's luggage storage at the Fernando Zobel station (I am doubtful), you could try to see the town in transit if you are not interested in the two quite nice modern-art museums. Otherwise, I think an overnight will be needed. Cuenca's right on the AVE line. Budget for a taxi from the AVE station into town in case the bus schedule doesn't work for you. The distance to town is about 3 miles.

• I think you have an awful lot of stops in small coastal cities (Alicante, Cartagena, Almeria, Marbella). I admit to not having been to any of them, but there are so many fascinating places in Spain, I think this is seriously overdoing it. You've also listed Valencia and Malaga, which I believe have more "sights" and presumably won't seem repetitive. I hope our Spanish experts will weigh in here.

• Seville needs more than 2 nights and Granada would probably benefit from a third night, too.

• I haven't been to Gibraltar (doesn't sound interesting to me), so my failure to comment on your allocation of two nights there does not constitute an endorsement, but rather insufficient information to form an opinion.

• I've been to Almagro. It does look somewhat different, architecturally, from your other destinations, but I wouldn't consider it essential if you end up tight on time as you tweak your itinerary.

• Ronda and the white villages (Arcos de la Frontera, etc.) are conspicuous by their absence.

Other places you might consider (if you decide to trim the coastal time) are Ubeda/Baeza in northern Andalucía and Caceres/Merida/Trujillo in Extremadura.

In terms of transportation, this looks mostly like a rail trip to me. There may be a bus segment required into and out of Granada, and seeing the white villages would be best with a car--maybe Ronda also. I think getting to Gibraltar will be easier with a car as well.

I will try to respond more helpfully later, but my immediate comments are

a) do you really want to move accommodation so much? If this mirrors what you did in Italy, then perhaps you are fine. But some of these visits could be done as day-trips (most obviously Malaga/Marbella)

b) Wow, Cartagena! Good for you! But have you planned the journeys for the trip? Alacant to Cartagena to Almeria is not a quick journey by either car or public transport. None of them are the top cities in Spain compared to others. Alacant is very nice, but Valencia is better. Almeria is fine, I suppose, but it hardly measures up to Granada or Malaga. And Cartagena is, of course, wonderful, but it is remote (thankfully). Are you planning a road-trip intending to enjoy the rural/coastal areas between or just moving from the city to city? If the former then the land/seaside of Alacant, Campo de Cartagena and Almeria province are great.

c) Sorry if I'm wrong, but part of this route does seem to be moving around a coastal map. Remember the roads don't necessarily follow the coast and the railway lines certainly don't (Cartagena to Almeria by train would be a nightmarish journey, by car its still 2-3 hours). Nor would you necessarily see a more varied set of places. For instance, having seen Valencia, I think I'd skip Alacant and go inland to Elche. Similarly, I'd then stay inland to see Murcia, before going on to Cartagena, then skip Almeria city and see Cabo and inland province instead.

d) Sniffy & snobby self-declared "travellers" don't like Gibraltar because it's not "real Spain" (obviously - it hasn't been Spanish for three hundred years, older than the USA independence) . Personally, I think it's brilliant and a must see. But even I might think twice about spending two nights there.

Sniffy & snobby self-declared "travellers" don't like Gibraltar because it's not "real Spain".

Nick, no need for that here... this is out of context. The "sniffy & snobby" people (myself included) who expressed that Gibraltar is not worth a day trip, did so in the context of itineraries that were relatively short and attempting to squeeze Gibraltar in (in many cases along with Tangiers).

When I (and others) advise people to pass on Gibraltar it's not because of some underlying elitism, it's just that we either felt it was somehow not to our personal taste or that it was logistically inefficient.

ACRAVEN- thank you for your post-
I agree with you re. Barcelona vs. Madrid. I was also planning on day trip(s) to Girona and Caceres from Barelona. My son is an art history graduate and he really enjoyed the art in italy, so this should work out. also a big Dali fan.
I'll keepSegovia and Alcala de Henares in mind.
Cuenca sounds like it could interest my son, so I'll keep it mind.
I sort of planned the coastal trip from valencia down since it seemed like a natural coastal trip. Whether it merits several overnight stays at every location, is still tbd.

NICK-as stated above, I'm hoping to drive from Valencia down through Gibraltar. the number of nights for each night is more like a placeholder for each town, and i may wind up driving through or maybe one night stays in each.
I'm sorta contemplating spending a good half day traveling from town to town, so at least one night in each, although there may be some towns that I'd have to limit to one night.

Hi Ralph, I think that you are confusing Cáceres with Tarragona? While Cáceres has the best Roman ruins in Spain, it's about 1000km west of Barcelona, close to the Portuguese border. Tarragona has arguably the second best Roman ruins in Spain and is about 1:30hr south of Barcelona.

If you or your son are interested in antiquity, then may I suggest visiting Empúries, about 2 hr north of Barcelona. Empúries is the site of the ancient ruins of a Greek colony from the 6th–3rd century BC. It's quite unique as the ruins sit right on the Costa Brava overlooking the sea. The area is also the site of an ancient Roman town called Emporiæ from the 2nd century BC - 6th century AD. There is a pretty good museum on-site containing artifacts and mosaics of the Roman and Greek periods called the Museu d'Arqueologia de Catalunya - Empúries.

sorry, I meant Cadaques.? Dali house etc.

Not certain what one would do in Gibraltar for two nights. I agree with Nick about day tripping between Marbella and Malaga, but disagree with him about Almeria and Murcia. I enjoyed Almeria and its Alcazaba, but found Murcia to be fairly uninteresting. As all your stops are decent sized cities, I agree that this seems to be a train trip.

You'll need to pre-purchase tickets for the Dali Theatre and Museum in Figueres and the Dali house in Port Lligat outside Cadaques. Both of those sights are more quickly reached from a base in Girona. Kill 3 birds with one stone??

Hey Ralph,

Here is an Itinerary that is in logical order and can help you cut down on so much movement in and out of hotels during that trip.

Fly into Barcelona and Fly out of Seville to go home.

October/November Time Frame (36 Nights)

1. Barcelona, Spain (6 Nights)

Day Trip - Tarragona, Spain

Day Trip - Zaragoza, Spain

2. Madrid, Spain (6 Nights)

Day Trip - Toledo, Spain

Day Trip - Segovia or Cuenca, Spain

3. Valencia, Spain (3 Nights)

4. Alicante (4 Nights)

Day Trip - Cartagena, Spain

Day Trip - Murcia, Spain

5. Granada, Spain (4 Nights)

Day Trip - Almeira, Spain

6. Cordoba, Spain (4 Nights)

Day Trip - Malaga, Spain

7. Marbella, Spain (4 Nights)

Day Trip - Gibraltar, UK

8. Seville, Spain (5 Nights)

Day Trip - Cadiz, Spain

Day Trip - Jerez De la Frontera, Spain

So Ralph instead of doing lodging in 16 different cities on your original itinerary, you can do lodging in 8 cities for your trip combining day trips of some cities which are not far in distance from each another.

Ralph use a combination of train and rental car for the entire trip.

Take care

While Rjean’s itinerary cuts down on hotel changes and logically is doeable, it adds a lot of transportation time, especially if train or bus connections are infrequent. One could also get tired of taking day trips. It is an interesting alternative.

thank you everyone for your suggestions. My next step will be to receive Rick's 2019 travel guide and doing detailed research.

Spain with 36 nights

Barcelona - 7 nights
... Day trips to Figueres+Girona & Montserrat

Train to Valencia - 3 nights

Train (via Madrid) to Toledo - 2 nights

Train (via Madrid) to Granada - 3 nights

Andalusia Road Trip - 5 nights
... Granada >> Malaga (2) >> Gibraltar (1) >> Ronda & White Villages (2) >> Sevilla

Sevilla - 6 nights
... Day trips to Cordoba, Jerez & Cadiz

Train to Madrid - 6 nights
... Day trips to Cuenca, El Escorial & Segovia

Train to Zaragoza - 3 nights

Train to Barcelona - 1 night

Ralph,
October/November (36 Nights)
Since you've never been to Spain (you'll want to see the big sights) and you will have your son with you only for about 10-12 days, stick to Barcelona (& side trips) and Madrid (& side trips) at the beginning of your trip. Also, seaside towns won't have quite as much appeal this time of year. Consider:

1. Barcelona (7 Nights)
   Overnight trip - Girona > Figueres > Cadaques (probably go directly to Cadaques, sleep in and visit Figueres and/or Girona on the way back to Barcelona) (1 night - or 2 if you like)
   Day trip - Montserrat

2. Madrid (7 Nights)
   easy Day-trip to Alcalá de Henares, visit the Colegío de San Ildefonso
   Overnight - Toledo (I enjoy the nights there - quiet, medieval streets) (1 night)
   Day Trip - Segovia

3. Valencia (3 Nights)

4. Granada (3 Nights)

5. Ronda / White Villages (such as Arcos) (2 nights)

6. Sevilla (5 nights)
   Day Trip - Jerez De la Frontera
   Day Trip - Cádiz

7. Córdoba (2 nights)

fly to:
8. San Sebastián ("Donostia" in Basque) and Bilbao (2 nights each; easy ground travel between the two)
or preferably go at the beginning of the trip if you can start before your son is available in Barcelona (the weather will be slightly warmer)!

Return to Madrid or Barcelona for (1 or 2 nights) before flying home.

Remember to save a day in the major cities to relax, stroll and soak up the culture.
Happy travels!