When I was planning our first trip to Italy, it was easy. The big three plus some famous sidetrips. Spain is throwing me for a loop. I have budgeted 36 days there beginning in Barcelona. What suggestions would you have for an itinery that would allow us to see the country with a maxiumu of 4 major cities with sidetrips. We will arrive on 4/26. I'm amazed at how things are already filling up.
Thank you
It really depends on what your interests are. I love Andalusia, and the spring is a great time to visit Andalusia as far as weather and temps go. Pleasant temps. Summer in Andalucia is very, very hot so May would be a good time.
The problem with Andalucia is that I think you are better off staying in several different cities to get the real flavor of each place. Seville is beautiful and there are side trips from Seville. Granada and Cordoba are wonderful places to stay, too. Some people visit Cordoba as a day trip from Seville but I prefer to spend 2 nights in Cordoba. Would you be willing to see Andalusia with this kind of a time split:
Seville - 4 nights
Cordoba - 3 nights
Granada - 3 nights
Then you could spend a week in Madrid and take side trips from there to Toledo, Segovia, and a few other places. I prefer to spend a couple nights in Toledo but if that is too much moving around for you, then you can certainly see Toledo as a day trip from Madrid.
And you can easily spend a week in Barcelona (or more) with day trips to Girona and Costa Brava. Although I prefer to spend several nights on the Costa Brava (such as Cadaques) and a few nights in Girona. But many people visit as a day trip. Montserrat is another day trip option from Barcelona.
I wouldn’t limit your time to 4 major cities, but I guess it depends on which cities and where you want to visit as side trips. To me the biggest unknown is if you intend to rent a car or use public transportation exclusively. What you like to see and do should impact your decision.
Spain has much more to offer than the major tourist destinations.
We will definitely use public transportation.
Spain is a very large country with widely scattered top-class destinations. Boiling the country down to just four overnight locations is very limiting. If I absolutely couldn't stay in more than four cities, for a May trip those cities would be Barcelona, Madrid, Seville and Granada. I'd get to Seville as early in the trip as I could because it might be getting quite hot by late May.
Granada's the smallest of those four cities; you could manage there with 3 nights if you were planning no side-trips, but I enjoyed taking the bus to Priego de Cordoba for the day, and Granada's an interesting place, so an extra night or two shouldn't be boring, assuming you enjoy walking around atmospheric neighborhoods.
I'd plan on at least five nights in Seville just to cover that city, but it has a lot of sights and could use more time for random exploration. Cordoba can be a day trip if you must, but it's worth at least a couple of nights itself. Carmona is a more laid-back side trip from Seville.
Madrid has many fabulous day-trip possibilities, starting with Toledo, Segovia, Cuenca and Alcala de Henares. The first three would be worth an overnight if you weren't wedded to the idea of just four base cities. Time needed for Madrid itself is significantly affected by how you feel about art museums. You could spend the better part of two full days just going to the Prado, Reina Sofia and Thyssen. Madrid certainly has other sights (the Royal Palace is a popular one), but to me it's the art museums that put its time requirement close to those for Seville and Barcelona. It's architecturally less distinctive than the other three cities I'm suggesting.
Barcelona has lots of sights requiring pre-purchased timed tickets, so it's great to have enough time that you don't have to schedule things too tightly; it can be a real problem to predict how much you'll spend at each sightseeing stop. I'd try for at least five nights in Barcelona, but you could add extra time for more exploration of picturesque neighborhoods. Side trips to Girona, Figueres (for the Dali Theatre-Museum) and Besalu would call for an extra day each. If all of those sound interesting to you and/or you also want to go up to Cadaques, you'd be very smart to add a fifth base, in Girona. All the other places I mentioned are shorter trips from Girona than from Barcelona.
Well, for the younger Rick, 36 nights would be 36 different hotels. OK, maybe a bit of hyperbole.
My advice is always the same.
Spend 4+ nights in any location.
For longer train trips, go 1st class.
Visit off-beat museums. No crowds and you learn a lot.
Walk the city.
Why 4 cities? Is that just an arbitrary number? What's the rationale for choosing that particular number (rather than 3 or 5, or 7 for that matter)?
As others have pointed out, Spain is a big, surprisingly diverse country - and some parts of it can take a while to reach. And it's "top sights" (however you might define those) are not distributed equally across the country. Are you hoping to "see it all" on this trip? If so, "sidetrips" (out and back – daytrips? – from a base) may not be an efficient way to go.
From a planning standpoint, I think the process you seem to be using (choose 4 cities, then figure out where to go from them), that seems backwards to me. I would first make a rough (and prioritized) list of the cities/regions you want to visit, then plot those on a map, and only then work out a logical, efficient sequence to include the majority of those. Maybe that means having 3 "bases," maybe you'll have 9. It all depends on where you hope to go and what your priorities are.
Bottom line: Without knowing your list of actual destinations, it makes no sense to choose your "bases" first. At least that's how I do trip planning...
