6 weeks in Spain..first time

The standard first time in Spain stops include Barcelona, Madrid, Toledo, Segovia, Sevilla, Córdoba, The white villages, and Granada. These are followed by León, Burgos, Santiago de Compostela, Malaga, San Sebastián, Bilbao, and Zaragoza. There are others.

The problem with just visiting the most popular places is you miss everything in between them. What you like to do and see, and how you’re getting around should determine where you go. Time of year will also be a factor.

One could easily spend six weeks in just Andalucía or Catalunya, or any region, for that matter.

Six weeks is a good amount of time to see most of the country. I would start by determining your first and last stop, depending on flights. Second I would have read guidebooks and determined places I want to visit. Next by looking at a good map and connecting the dots. Then I would look for transportation from each dot by either train, bus, or driver (if you won’t have a rental). At this point I either eliminate places or add depending on ease and cost of transportation.
When I have a rough route planned out, I determine how many days are needed in each city, adding extra days for any day trips. We stay a minimum of 3 nights in each city just because we hate packing and unpacking and rushing around.
I add in activities last.
Any must sees will be determined by your interests. You can read previous trip reports to help fill in some blanks.

Wow! Six weeks in Spain. It's a very large and diverse country, but you could pretty well see much of it given you have the time. And you're fortunate that Spain is one of the more reasonably priced large European country to travel in.

Have you done any reading in any travel books about Spain? That's where I'd start before setting any itinerary. The library is a good place to find such information.

We flew into Madrid, visited Granada (and Alhambra) and then flew 1 hour over to Barcelona. We loved those cities. We previously visited Malaga coming off cruise ships and found the coastline to be one big traffic jam with high rise condos everywhere.

I suggest you see if leasing a car is an option--for so many weeks. I would break the trip up into one week segments. A week in Portugal would be very nice too since you're going to be right there.

Another question is which six weeks? January 15 to March 1st is not the same as July 1 to August 15.

What time of year? That may bring up some places to avoid, if only for weather, or crowds. But I am with others, you can see much of the country, basically it breaks down (for popular areas) into Barcelona and area, Madrid and surrounding area, Andalusia and the South coast, The Basque region and the North. Of those, Andalusia probably demands the most time and moving around, the others could be done justice in a week.

From April 27 to June 10th. We will be traveling by trains.

It is a great time to travel in Spain and the idea of traveling by train is also very successful.

Try to start in the south (Seville, Cordoba, Granada). By June that area can be unpleasantly hot. Your odds are better earlier in the trip.