6 days in Spain- flying in and out of Barcelona

How many nights do you have in Spain?

How are you getting to Madrid - train, short flight, car? Would your day trip be strictly by car, bus, train, and/or a guided tour providing transport, or maybe any of the above?

Plan ahead for this food in Barcelona. Tickets is one of the 50 best restaurants in the world. Its sister restaurant, Bodega 1900, is also wonderful. Tickets reservations are available (I think) 60 days out, starting at midnight Barcelona time. You have to be online immediately at that time to get reservations. Bodega 1900 used to be easier to get into, but not lately. Look at the websites and keep on your toes! OMG. Liquid olives. Just go to there.

Drop in at Formatgeria La Seu for some cheese and vermouth. Visit a neighborhood vermouth bar where locals come in with jugs and fill them up from vermouth casks set into the wall.

You can definitely find enough to do just in Barcelona for the time you're going to be there, with a few day trips. There are tons of day trips from Barcelona -- even Madrid! You will probably want a day at Sagrada Familia and related Gaudi sites.

We took a trip to Freixenet, which was an easy train trip and we had a lovely lunch in the town square.

Depending on your answer to acraven’s question, doing things in Barcelona by itself could easily fill the time you have. You could do a couple day trips from it. Popular day trips from Barcelona are Monserrat and Figueres. From Madrid, Toledo seems to be the most popular., followed by Segovia.

How many full days do you have in Spain, not including your flying in and flying out days?
If that answer is 5 days or less, you will have a very rushed experience in both Barcelona and Madrid, considering the time needed to get from Barcelona to Madrid. An additional "small day trip" would make your time in Barcelona and Madrid even more rushed.

Thank you everyone so far! We will have 6 whole days and 6 nights. We have no plans set in stone other than flights in and out of Barcelona. We thought about a train to Madrid for 2 nights, maybe a day trip to Girona, but only if time would permit.

Having been there recently, IMO 2 nights would be the absolute minimum to get even a sense of Madrid. To go to the effort and expense of going there, and because of a day trip having only one full day there--well, it brings up the question of whether that makes sense. Take your 2 nights to enjoy Madrid.

If you have 6 nights in Spain that's only 5 full, non-jetlagged days, and I would not de-camp to Madrid at all unless you are very attracted by its art museums. My philosophy is that a really nice visit to Barcelona with perhaps a day-trip or two (Girona's my favorite) is much better than a too-short visit to Barcelona and a short visit to Madrid.

Lots of wonderful options, depending on your time, energy, and desire. On our last trip to Spain we had more than 6 days & nights, and started in Madrid, with a day trip to Toledo and an overnight visit to Segovia. We then took a long, 5 1/2 hour train to Bilbao, rented a car, and made our way towards Barcelona, with many days and many stops in between, including Figueres (Dali museum), Cadaques/Port Lligat (one of Salvador Dali’s homes), and Girona (home base for a lot of the world’s pro bicycle racers).

The immense, incredible Prado museum in Madrid was exhausting, even though a big part of it was off limits to the public that day, because they were filming some kind of TV program. A surprisingly excellent art museum in Madrid, with an outstanding collection but not as huge as the Prado, is the Thyssen-Bornemisza museum, put together by a wealthy elevator manufacturing magnate. Highly recommended if you include Madrid in your 6 days.

I am loving all of these suggestions, thank you so much! We are very eager, young couple, who spent 1 day in Iceland and 3 days in Ireland on our last trip and saw everything that we wanted to in both countries, so I have no doubt that we will hit the ground running the second we touch down in Spain. Any specific neighborhoods we should check out for AirBnb's? How about restaurants, or sights?