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7-nights in Barcelona - Madrid or south of France for 2-3 nights?

My husband and I and another couple were able to get a great airfare from Atlanta to Barcelona in February for 7-nights. This will be our first visit to Spain.

Welcome your recommendations - should we spend all 7 nights in Barcelona or spend 2-3 of our nights in either Madrid or the south of France?

We’ve been to France - but only Paris.

We enjoy food, wine, art, architecture and beautiful scenery. We’re comfortable joining small group tours and would be fine taking trains.

Greatly appreciate your recommendations.

Suzette

Posted by
26840 posts

Personally, I'd stick with Barcelona. Your seven nights is just six full sightseeing days. Even if you spend only 2 nights in Madrid, you're reducing your full days in Barcelona to only three. Or you could go straight to Madrid on your arrival day and spend 3 nights there, but you'd still have only 3 full days for Barcelona. That's going to prove frustrating when you try to schedule your visits to the many sights for which you'll be buying tickets in advance. And the weather will be milder in Barcelobs.

Although Barcelona doesn't have the Prado, the MNAC is quite good, the Miro Museum is a joy to visit, and as art fans I assume you'll want to brave the utter madness that is the Picasso Museum. And there are other art museums.

Southern France is lovely, but I don't think a 2- or 3-day trip from Barcelona would be smart. Tnere are lots of nice art-related sights, but they're scattered all over the place, not usually terribly near the Spanish border, and they are often located one per town (except for the over-endowed Nice). That area deserves its own trip, for sure. Also, Google "mistral".

Posted by
11056 posts

Is your airfare purchased in and out of Barcelona? Does the seven days in include flights to/from US? If not, fly into Barcelona, stay there four days, high speed train to Madrid, spend three days, and fly home from Madrid. If your airfare is purchased in/out of Barcelona then stay there and do day trips as you do not have enough time to go to Madrid and back. If you can change your return flights, go to Madrid by train for a Spanish experience in addition to Barcelona which is Catalan, different cultures.
Save the lovely south of France for another trip to do it justice. It needs more than seven days.

Posted by
336 posts

I agree with Staying in Barcelona as well.
We did excatly that in october. We pretty saw all of what we wanted in 5 days, so one day we went to the Montserrat Monastery and the remainind day, we rent a car for the day and went north, took the road by the see, went to see a few small villages and came back

Posted by
60 posts

Madrid! There is so much to do in Madrid, so much more than just art museums. Barcelona is great, Madrid is wonderful!! Four of us on a Spain trip, all four of us liked Madrid so much more than Barcelona. Great food, fabulous wine, and Madrid "feels" European. Barcelona has a more Mediterranean feel...fun place, but I wouldn't skip Madrid to spend more time in Barcelona.

Posted by
7175 posts

Day
1. Arrive Barcelona. Pick up car. Drive to Girona (1N)
2. Drive to Cadaques (1N)
3. Drive via Figueres to Barcelona (5N). Return car
4. Barcelona
5. Barcelona
6. Barcelona
7. Barcelona
8. Depart Barcelona

Posted by
3218 posts

If you love art, you owe it to yourselves to take the train to Madrid and spend two nights there so you can see the Prado, Reina Sofa and Thyssen museums. There is plenty of good food, wine and architecture in Madrid. Barcelona has better architecture, but I wouldn't write off Madrid.

We used this company for small-group day tours in both Madrid and Barcelona. Priorat Wine Country was the bomb.

https://spanish-trails.com/