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Barcelona + Another City Suggestion for 8 Day Trip

Hi there!

My husband and I will be flying round-trip to Barcelona for the first 8 days of December, and we’d love to explore another European city while we’re there. We’re open to taking a short nonstop flight to a nearby destination within that timeframe and would prefer not to rent a car.

We’re considering spending 5 nights in Barcelona and then flying to spend 2 nights in Porto, Portugal (towards the end of the trip before returning to Barcelona). Alternatively, we could split our time with 5 nights in Barcelona and 2 in Girona. I also thought about the Costa Brava but am unsure about how lively it would be in December.

I’m open to any other city suggestions as well and would really appreciate any advice you can offer! Thank you so much in advance.

Posted by
653 posts

I really enjoyed Bilboa. I’ve not been to Porto but I prefer Bilboa to Lisbon. I can recommend the air bnb we stayed in if interested.

Posted by
3230 posts

Girona is a day trip from Barcelona by direct train (45m).
If I visited Costa Brava, I would want a car so I could drive along the coast. I doubt if late fall is the ideal time to do this. There are nonstop flights between Barcelona and Porto.

Posted by
96 posts

I just returned from an 8 night trip to Barcelona with my mother earlier in October. We spent four very full days in Barcelona, and did a day trip to Girona and a day trip to Zaragoza both by train. The day trips were also very full days, but were very easy to navigate via train and to/from the station, and I liked that we didn’t have to relocate lodgings for the day trips. I felt the mix of cities and old towns checked off a lot of my must do boxes when exploring new places. Looking back, I could have probably spent one more full day in Barcelona; there is so much to do! Unfortunately for us, both our day trips had a few hours of rain, so we didn’t get to explore as much as I had first planned in Girona and Zaragoza, but we saw all the main highlights in both.