Alicante or Espona, Malaga

How much time do you have from the time you leave Barcelona until you must be in Lisbon? Travel connections between Spain and Portugal are not great, in general. Do you plan to fly to Lisbon?

We have 9 nights from barcelona to lisbon. We like to drive but if that is time prohibited we are open to other options or a combination of drive/fly/train too.

If you've never been to Lisbon before, I think you'll want at least 3 nights (2 days) there to see the main sights. Add one day if you want to make a side trip to Sintra or Cascais.

The (possible) difficulty with driving is that there is often a very high (hundreds of dollars) additional fee for picking up a car in one country and dropping it in another. I suggest checking on car-rental possibilities right away so you'll know whether that is a viable option. If it is not, I imagine you'll want to fly, because the train from Alicante to Lisbon is an overnight run taking 14 to 16 hours. The time from Malaga is similar and requires the same connection in Madrid and an overnight train. There's just the one train per day, so if there was a serious problem with the train inbound to Madrid (admittedly, that would be unlikely) you could miss your 45-minute connection and lose a full day unless you scrambled to look for a bus, and that would probably take over 9 hours, and there aren't many buses, either.

Not too many Spanish cities have non-stop flights to Lisbon. Those potentially useful to you (geographically) are Malaga (looks like perhaps $260), Barcelona (from $105), Valencia (from $158) and Madrid (from $87). Alicante requires a change and is in the same price range as Malaga. Those are current prices for a randomly selected date during the first week of November on skyscanner.com .

I know it sounds like a great idea to combine Spain and Portugal on a single trip, but the skimpy transportation options make that challenging. One thing I happen to know from looking at bus schedules earlier this year is that there are several buses a day from Badajoz, Extremadura (near the Portuguese border due east of Lisbon), to Lisbon. If you found a car rental that allowed a low-cost drop-off, you could design a driving trip from Barcelona through some interesting towns to Badajoz, drop the rental car there, then get the bus to Lisbon. The driving time from Barcelona to Badajoz would be over 10 hours without stops. Similarly, you could drive from Alicante to Badajoz in somewhat less time, though I think there may not be as many interesting stopping points on that route.

I'm confused about what you are interested in seeing on the way, because this thread mentions Alicante or Espona and your other thread, Malaga and Denia. I haven't been to any of those cities, and I don't know where Espona is, or what it is.

Again Thank you! Your input has helped me make a route. Train from Barcelona to Alicante (we will have a car until Malaga): 3-4 nights there and then to Malaga for 3 -4 nights then fly Malaga to Lisbon . We have 3 nights in Lisbon. Do you recommend staying those 3 nights in Lisbon itself and seeing that city with possible day trip outside or stay outside Lisbon. No car if we stay in Lisbon but yes a car if outside. Thanks for your input

I think there's plenty to see in Lisbon, but you can visit Sintra easily from Lisbon by train if you decide you want a change of scene. Cascais, too. I don't see any advantage to having a car there.

Terri,

Do you have plans to visit Granada from Malaga?

If so, make sure you book your Alhambra tickets NOW!

Enjoy your trip!

Oh I hadnt thought of that! I will look into it. Thank you for your help. Heres what the plan is. Any suggestions on must see things, restaurants not to miss or accommodations is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.
3 nights in Barcelona
3 nights in Denia Alicante
3 nights in Malaga
4 nights in Lisbon