5 days northern spain road trip...help please !

I don't think 5 nights is near enough time for the scope of the trip you describe.

I would fly Barcelona to Oviedo (2N)
Pick up rental car. Drive to Leon (1N)
Drive to Lugo (1N)
Drive to Santiago de Compostela (2N)
Drive to Pontevedra (1N)
Drop car in Vigo. Train to Porto.

There are lots of great places to stop along the way, but David is right that 5 days is very little time to cover that much ground. ViaMichelin estimates about 12 hours without any stops, and that doesn't get you to San Sebastian or Santander.

Santander has an impressive beach but otherwise seemed nothing special to me. There was a catastrophic fire in 1941 that wiped out most of the historic architecture. The beach-front rebuilding was handsomely done, but compared to the other options, I think it pales.

Lugo I haven't seen.

I view Vigo as a place to drop a car, nothing more, which I imagined is what you're planning. Among the Galician cities, Santiago de Compostela, A Coruna and Pontevedra are considerably more attractive. There are also many nice small coastal towns/villages.

I liked all the other places mentioned, but trying to see all of them might well result in seeing very little. I recommend covering less ground in hopes of having more sightseeing time and less travel time.

Depending on your projected driving expenses, you might consider flying all the way to one of the Galician airports and just traveling around that area via train or bus for a few days. Distances are short.

Thanks for those answers.

You gave to know that us snd our kids are very use to car travel since kids where born. We many time by years go to my girlfriend family which is at 6 hours drive.

12 hours drive in 5 Days is a bit mire than 2 hours by day...Not Much from our point of view. We know its not ideal , but like ive said we see it as a road trip that would allows us to take a glimpse of northern Spain.

If anyone could suggest us Night stops were we can easily park the car for free...

Approximate times I think you are looking at if driving non stop ...
8 hours from Barcelona to San Sebastián
12 hours from San Sebastián to Santiago de C
4 hours from Santiago de Compostela to Porto

OK. Just to be clear, that driving time I gave you earlier was, as indicated, the fastest route (per ViaMichelin) from Barcelona to Vigo. If you want to take the route you originally specified (Barcelona-Zaragoza-San Sebastian-Santander-Oviedo-Lugo-Pontevedra-Vigo), ViaMichelin estimates 16:47 without stops. Of course, that also does not include the time needed to pick up and drop off the car or to find your way to your hotel each night.

I didn't use a car in Spain and can't suggest hotels that provide parking. In cities, hotels with parking are typically the more modern ones, often not located near the historic districts that tourists want to see.

Hotel websites like booking.com allow you to filter out hotels that don't offer such features as parking. If you're traveling in the summer and opt to overnight in Zaragoza, be sure your lodgings there are air-conditioned. You may also need a/c in other places along your route.

We have 5-6 nights between Zaragozza and Vigo (car drop). We could avoid the northern coast so we could have a more direct route.

One other options (but costly one we guess) would be to take a plane from Barcelona to Porto, stay Porto 2-3 nights, rent a car and go in somes places in Galician for 3-4 nights and then head back to Portugal and end the trip in lisbon.

That way it would be

Barcelona 5 nights
Porto 3 nights
Galicia (4-5 nights)
Portugal (11-12 nights)

Check Skyscanner; you might might find a good deal from Barcelona to Porto, though on the random day I checked there were only time-consuming connecting flights. Alternatively look for a flight from Barcelona to one of the Galician airports. There are non-stops to Santiago de Compostela, Vigo and A Coruna.

I like the idea of training to Zaragosa unless you want to see Montserrat. If that's a priority, make it a stop on the way from Barcelona in a rental car.

If you go north from there, one of my favorite castles in Europe is in the little town of Olite (about 30 minutes before Pamplona traveling north from Zaragosa). IMO it's the perfect balance of reconstructed without furnishing and roping off everything. You can climb towers and zig zag through the rooms. They give you a decent personal audio guide as part of your admission.

When deciding whether to go north, along the coast, or straight there, I'd base my decision on time of year. In high summer, the northern beaches will be ideal. In shoulder or winter months, I'd probably skip them. We visited San Sebastian/Donostia in April. It's a nice little city with a beautiful bay but it was rainy and chilly, no one was on the beach.

This is a more manageable 1061km drive over 6 days.
Day
1. Train to Zaragoza
2. Pick up car. Drive via Burgos to Leon
3. Drive to Oviedo
4. Drive to Lugo
5. Drive to Santiago de Compostela
6. Drive to Pontevedra
7. Drive to Vigo. Return car. Train to Porto

Thanks a lot for all those answers !

We talk about another option last night what would you think about thos 2 options:

1) Take a flight from Barcelona to Santiago de compostella or A coruna and travel by train or bus from there for 4-5 days toward Porto. Is those places well covered by public transport ?

2) Take flight from Barcelona to Porto, stay Porto for 2-3 nights then rent a car to see Galicia for 4-5 nights then drive back into Portugal for the reste of the trip (7-10 days)

Asturias airport at Aviles near Oviedo would be a better option as per my original suggestion.

I spent 12 days bouncing around Galicia last year, using only public transportation. During that time I stayed in Vigo, Pontevedra, Santiago de Compostela and A Coruna. I made day trips to a number of small towns (Betanzao, Combarra, Cambados, Tui). It worked fine, but I had much more time than you do. In the time you have available, I think two of the cities (don't choose Vigo) would be manageable by train/bus. A car would allow you to cover more ground, but part of that ground would be the drive back and forth from Porto, so I'm not sure there's a net gain.

Edited to add: Travel options within Galicia seemed pretty frequent. It's the border crossing that offers limited departures. There are two bus companies serving the Vigo-Porto leg; you can probably pick up a bus in Santiago and/or Pontevedra as well, but I just checked for Vigo.

Autna departure times. Another online source says the travel time is 2 hours.

ALSA schedule look-up. It appears that there's just one bus per day.

There is also some train service, but just two departures on the random weekday I chose.

I haven't flown into any of the airports in northern Spain, so I have no opinion about flying to Oviedo vs. Galicia.

hanks for those answers. Web know it doesnt look logical to fly to Porto to then headback info Spain, maybe it isn't but heres the reasons why we have thought about that option:
1) since we are with kids we gave to buy kids seats ( dont want to drag ours and rental with car company is expensive). Renting two cars ( one in Spain and one in Portugal) would mean to drag those seats between Galicia and Porto.
2) flights to Porto and À Coruna cost about the same. Santiago de Compostela ordinateur Oviedo are more expensive. We would lose time going in a place (À Coruna) that doesnt seems to deserve it if we fly There.
3) Porto is at half an hour from Galicia is not really time consuming to get there first

That makes sense.

For what it's worth, I liked A Coruna. But it's a bit farther from Portugal and Galicia is not short on attractive destinations.

Since you'll have a car, you might research the northern Portugal towns of Viana do Castela, Barcelos, Braga, and Guimaraes to see if one or two would make appealing quick stops. You can Google for information on markets; you might have a chance to hit one.