Hey RS community,
I've been loving reading through this sight and need some fresh eyes on my Spain Itinerary. I've seen so many thoughtful and helpful posts over the years, now here I am, throwing out my own.
My family (me, partner, 9yr old and 5 yr old) are heading to Spain for 2 weeks in February. We land in Barcelona and fly out of Madrid. We've been to Spain before (Barcelona, Valencia, Madrid, Segovia) and would also like to visit our friends in Barcelona and Porto (I know, it's far, but they just had a baby that we'd love to meet) in this trip.
How does this itinerary look? We don't need to cram a lot in at each city, just explore, try some good food and maybe see 1 major site. We have already done a big museum trip in Madrid and a beach trip around Barcelona so we can "relax" (can you do that when travelling with kids?) a bit in those cities in this trip. It's also Carnival at that time, but sadly, we'll miss the festivities in Barcelona and Madrid by a few days. We'll take the train once (Barcelona - Madrid) but will be road tripping in our rental car the rest of the time. I looked into renting the car in Toledo or dropping it off at a different location but they don't have automatic transmissions or it would cost 5x the price of just renting the car in Madrid. I'm used to long car drives and our kids actually love decompressing in the backseat for a few hours at a time. Is this crazy? Thanks in advance!
Day 1 Arrive Barcelona at noon, check in to our Airbnb in the Gracia Nova area, explore the neighborhood + dinner
Day 2 Visit Friends in Barcelona
Day 3 Explore Barcelona
Day 4 Train to Madrid AM, rent a car at the Atocha station, Drive to Toledo and arrive around 3PM. Check in to Toledo hotel
Day 5 Full day exploring Toledo
Day 6 Leave Toledo in the AM, drive to Avila (1.5 hours) for lunch and walk around for a few hours. Drive to Porto (4.5 hours) Arrive in Porto by 9PM
Day 7 Explore Porto
Day 8 Explore Porto (day trip)
Day 9 Visit friends 1 hour north of Porto
Day 10 Leave Porto after breakfast and drive to Salamanca (3.5 hours) Overnight in Salamanca. Hotel right on Plaza Mayor
Day 11 Explore Salamanca until 1PM, drive to Madrid (2.5 hours). Return rental car by 5PM
Day 12 Madrid
Day 13 Madrid
Day 14 Madrid (flight at 9PM)