4 week itinerary

Spain is so rich in history, art and architecture one can easily fill the entire month just there. There are differencesnin regions as well, so i would get started looking at what draws you. I like the DK Eyewitness travel book for visuals to catch my fancy (free from the library, of course) for first layer planning. A possible consideration is Barcelona-Madrid-Toledo-Granada-Cordoba-Seville-Lisbon-Barcelona. Train/ bus between most. Fly Seville to Lisbon and Lisbon to Barcelona.....or if you haven't purchased flights yet, depart from Lisbon. You want to consider day trips from Madrid, like Avila or Segovia. This gives a taste of a few regions.

The cities in Spain have much to offer in terms of history, architecture, food and culture, so this doesn’t help narrow down where to visit. Personally, I like to visit smaller towns as well as cities.

Although 4 weeks sounds a lot of time, Spain is a large country. The previous poster has suggested 8 places in 4 weeks - that’s too much of a rush for me, as moving accommodation and travel between places takes time.

A 2 hour train journey is likely to mean a door to door travel time of about 3.5 hours.

It’s your choice whether to spend a week visiting Portugal (Lisbon and Porto), which I like, but it isn’t that well connected to Spain by public transport.

Ideally, Madrid needs at least 4 full days there. Barcelona and Seville are 3 full day minimum cities each. Granada is 2-3 full days. Allow another day to get to each place in your planning, as my estimates are minimum times. With a month of travel, it would be sensible to have a down day in week 3 to catch up with yourself.

From Seville, you could get the train to Jerez and have at least 2 full days in the town to see the horse show and sample some sherry at a bodega. Catch the train from there to Cadiz for a day trip.

I would suggest that you pick 6 places maximum for your timescale to avoid feeling rushed.

I see from your posting history that you are well-traveled, but the earlier trips were in the UK/Ireland. You mention a month in Spain and arriving from France, so I want to be sure you're aware that holders of US/Canadian passports are limited to 90 days within any rolling 180-day period inside the Schengen Zone. France and Spain are both Schengen countries, as is most of western continental Europe. Both arrival day and departure day count.

Spain, as already noted, is huge. I spent 89 days there in 2016 without going to Andalucía or Valencia. It was not hard, especially since I was using public transportation. It's a fascinating country with a lot of variety. I do like Portugal, but transportation links between the two countries are not great, and I don't see any particular value in peeling off time for Portugal on this particular trip. Portugal is worth its own trip, or a major part of a separate trip.

If you're interested in going inside a bunch of the modernista sites in Barcelona, you'll find it challenging to plan a short visit there. A lot of those places are extremely popular and basically require pre-purchased, timed tickets to avoid extremely long ticket lines and possible sell-outs. I'd suggest looking early at the sightseeing options in Barcelona to figure out how many days you'll want there. It can easily suck up a lot of your time. And then there's the rest of Catalunya (Girona, Figueres if you like Dali, the Costa Brava, and more).

If you're interested in the north coast between Galicia and the Basque Country, I recommend that you head there as early in the trip as possible. It is usually not hot even in mid-summer, and I think the weather will be better in mid-September than in mid-October. On the other end of the spectrum, Andalucía is likely to still be quite hot in September. It can be your last stop.

Not sure about your exact timing, but you may want angle your itinerary to be in Barcelona for our annual city festival, La Mercè (Sep 21-24). It would be a shame to miss it by a few days.

The festival itself is huge, there are 100s of events spread throughout Barcelona's squares, streets, museums, and parks. The best part - all the entertainment is free. This is something that we put on for ourselves, not just for tourists. If you want to experience the traditional Catalan culture like a local, at least for a few days, this is a great opportunity!

During La Mercè, make sure to check out the Castellers, which are human towers built by teams of the local communities. Also something that is really cool is the Correfoc, which I would describe as a pyro-musical with synchronized fireworks, there is usually a big one at the base of the Montjuïc mountain.

Maria said: Fly Seville to Lisbon and Lisbon to Barcelona.....or if you haven't purchased flights yet, depart from Lisbon.

I'll add: If you have already booked flights home from Barcelona, then consider flying from Paris to Lisbon or Seville, wherever is the furthest destination in your final plan. Then you only stay in Barcelona once and hopefully cut your total travel time.

Because you will be traveling mid-September to mid-October, I strongly recommend visiting Andalucia on this trip. Andalucia is very very HOT during the summer months so autumn is the perfect time to visit. Seville could still be hot, but if you are there in October, it might not be too bad. We visited Madrid, Toledo, and Andalucia from mid-September to October 3 in 2017. It was in the 80's in all our destinations, except for Seville, where it was 90 - 95 at end of September/very early October. I've heard that temps during the summer months can be 100F or more!

I agree with Maria that if you haven't purchased airline tickets yet, you should fly home from Lisbon, if that is your furthest destination. That way you don't have to backtrack to Barcelona, which is time-consuming.

And I agree with Laura that if you have booked flights home from Barcelona, then consider flying from Paris to Lisbon, and then make your way to Barcelona so that you end up there.

In four weeks, I believe you do have the time to visit the places that Maria suggests. I have been to all of those places, so this is a proposed itinerary for you (i'll assume you are starting out in Barcelona, which is your original plan):

Barcelona - 6 nights
Then take AVE train to Madrid
Madrid - 4 nights
Then take train to Toledo (30 minute train ride)
Toledo - 2 nights
Then take train to Cordoba. You have to change trains at Atocha in Madrid.
Cordoba - 3 nights
Then take ALSA bus to Granada.
Granada - 3 nights
Then take ALSA bus to Seville
Seville - 4 nights
Then fly from Seville to Lisbon
Lisbon - 4 or 5 nights (depends on whether or not you can fly home from Lisbon)
5 nights will give you time for a day trip to Sintra.
If 4 nights in Lisbon, then fly from Lisbon to Barcelona for the last night of your trip. It would be better, though, if you don't have to be in Barcelona twice.

I don't think this itinerary will be rushed because you don't have any one-nighters, and only one 2-night stay.
And you don't really lose a whole day traveling. We took morning trains and buses. For example, we arrived in Cordoba in the early afternoon. After checking into our hotel, we had lunch and then visited the Mezquita around 3:30PM. We had similar situations for Granada and Seville, where we had time for lunch on our arrival day and a little bit of sightseeing or just wandering around the neighborhoods.

Oh, the ALSA bus is wonderful. They are modern, clean, comfortable, and air-conditioned. On one ride, they distributed bags filled with snacks and a bottle of water to each passenger!

Hope this helps.

Thank you all for your great tips and insights.

I like the idea of starting in Lisbon and working our way back to Barcelona (we already have our flights booked).

We will be coming from Britain and had planned to catch the train from London to Paris then on to Barcelona, however, I am not keen on being in Bacelona at festival time so the alternative of flying from Bristol (UK) to Lisbon is quite appealing.

Plenty of food for thought and I am sure I will have other questions over the coming months.