Castilla y Leon

Santiago de Compostela, a treasure.

Zamora, Tordesillas, Valencia de Don Juan (castle), Puebla de Sanabria, Ponferrada, and Astorga are a few. Just outside of San Justo de la Vega is a nice overlook on the Camino and there is a nice bridge in Hospital de Obrigo also on the Camino de Santiago. Salamanca is 113 miles away, Avila is 141 miles away, and Burgos is 97 miles from Leon. Santiago de Compostela is 152 miles away. A lot depends on what you’d like to see and how you’re getting from place to place.

Edited: if the renovations to the Parador in Leon are completed before your trip, it was an outstanding hotel. I’m not certain when it’s supposed to be completed.

Thank you for your responses. I will concentrate on Castilla y Leon, not Galicia. I've been to Santiago when I did my Camino, which I started in Ponferrada. I will fly into Madrid and move from city to city by train. The idea is to explore Leon in 3-4 days and then the other cities nearby, such as Salamanca, Avila, Segovia, Valladolid.

A car would be useful, driving in the region is very fast and easy, whereas train links, while much improved in recent years, remain somewhat infrequent.
- León is great, but four days is a lot.
- Valladolid is so-so, Burgos is better.
- Segovia deserves an overnight, Ávila less so, but if you pass through Ávila eg from Salamanca to Segovia then yes, you should stop.
- Between Segovia and Burgos, the village of Pedraza is amazing.

In nine days with a car you can easily loop León-Zamora-Salamanca-Segovia-Burgos-Leon.
You could do the same with buses I'm sure, but far less convieniently.

Driving or public transportation?

Look at taking buses rather than trains. I did that and found them to be inexpensive and fairly frequent. Actually we picked up a car in Leon (arrived there by bus from Burgos) but we were heading to more rural areas. If you are interested in mostly the cities you mention I'd stick to buses. I had 2 nights in Leon and 3 in Burgos, on another trip had 3 in Salamanca, 3 in Segovia, Avila as a day trip. You could probably shorten those 3 nighters to 2 and still see the highlights.

Enric - in one response, he said he’d be using trains.