Feedback on itinerary 43 days

Redo it so you have a minimum of 3 nights in any location.
Preferably 4

Just curious. Have you been to Malaga? It's a wonderful small city that is very much Spanish unlike the rest of the Costa del Sol. The historic city center is wonderful with marble streets, beautiful architecture, and nice stores and restaurants.

Malaga does have a wonderful Gothic cathedral. Thought I would mention this even though you said you are tired of cathedrals. And Malaga has numerous small museums, not major museums. We visited the very interesting Picasso Museum. However, Malaga also has the Alcazaba with a meandering path through lush greenery and exotic flowers that brings you to the 11th century Moorish fortress with stunning views of the port, city, and Mediterranean. And the Castillo de Gibralfaro, Mercado Atarazanas, the Paseo de Espana (a palm-lined park), and a lovely seaside promenade where you can have drinks while watching the sunset. And Malaga even has a ferris wheel!!!

Since you are flexible with your number of days, I think Malaga would be a nice addition to your itinerary.

With 43 days I would have thought you’d stay in some smaller towns or at least visit some. I don’t see where you have any time built in to stop at places en route to your next lodging. There are a lot of interesting places to visit that are in the middle of nowhere. Torla and Picos de Europa are fine with the days you have. The Pyrenees covers a large area, so no idea where you plan to visit. To me, the only thing to see in Lorca is the castle and it’s not the best castle I’ve been to. It’s nice for about an hour’s visit. There is a nice hotel next to it on the hill; the Parador.

I think you are bypassing a good chunk of off-the-beaten path yet very interesting places between Barcelona and Valencia and further down the Mediterranean coast. Have you considered renting a car as you leave Barcelona to travel south to Valencia and points beyond? I did a road trip in this area over the summer and was pleasantly surprise by the amount of sites and places to see and the the relative lack of tourists, especially foreign ones. This area is known as the Costa Dorada and continues into the Costa del Azahar all the way to Valencia and beyond, it's a land full of ancient olive trees, citrus groves, sandy beaches, lazy beach towns, time-warped castles, and Roman Ruins.

Here are some of my favorite points of interest in the area.

Poblet Royal Monastery - a UNESCO World Heritage Site and still active 12th-century Cistercian monastery. It was a fortified medieval royal residence and contains the unique hanging tombs of the old Kings of Aragon.

Tarragona - ancient seaside town with very good Roman ruins, including an amphitheater, intact aqueduct, and Praetorium Tower, was once the capital of Roman Hispania (modern-day Spain). Tarragona's medieval old town is a delight to explore too.

Les Ferreres Aqueduct - Roman Aqueduct you can walk on top of, a few km from Tarragona.

Sitges - the quintessential posh beach town, 30 min south from Barcelona. Has multiple small sandy beaches. Known for its gay scene, Sitges also has nice historic centre lined with boutique restaurants and shops.

Castillo de Miravet - A large riverside stronghold built by the Knights Templar with commanding views of the countryside. The adjacent medieval village spills down the cliff towards the rivers. A great place to bicycle, kayak, or take a leisurely boat down the Ebro river.

Peñíscola - With its cobbled streets and whitewashed houses, the old town of Peñíscola sits on a big rock that juts out into the sea. The town is dominated by a large Knights Templar castle that looks like something out of the Crusades. Recently, Peñíscola was used as a filming location in the T.V. series Game of Thrones.

Matarraña Region - often referred to as the “Tuscany of Spain”, sprawling vineyards, olive groves, and ancient stone villages. The unspoiled Matarraña region is located in the province of Teruel in southern Aragon, here they speak a dialect of Catalan.

Sagunto Castle (Saguntum) - settlement sacked by Hannibal Barca that led to the Second Punic War. Now an eclectic mix of Roman, Moorish, and Christian fortifications.

Here is my trip report of my road trip to the region - https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports/undiscovered-spain-mediterranean-roadtrip-2023

Here are some of my pictures from the road trip - https://photos.app.goo.gl/sMsd6Wz2fydGKYtr5

Although you list the number of days tentatively planned at each stop, it seems it's really the nmber of nights. The number of full days is one less, so only 2 days in Seville, one day in Caceres, etc.

The difficulty here is that Spain is a very large country, you want to go to places from north to south and east to west, you're interested in seeing some off-the-beaten path places, but you're trying to do it all in six weeks. Frankly, it isn't going to work well. You've already started receiving suggestions of places to add and I have a list of my own (Cadiz, Ubeda and Baeza, Trujillo and Merida while you're in Caceres, Teruel and Albarracin, Hondarribia and several smaller Basque Country towns, Girona, Burgos, a bunch of places in Galicia, etc.)--and I haven't rented a car so I'm not up on the little places that so enrich a trip.

I urge you to do what I did and split Spain into multiple trips. I ended up spending 88 days on the first trip, which included ten days in Barcelona but excluded Andalucia and Valencia, then I returned a few years later and spent 5 weeks or so just hitting those two areas. I still haven't seen everything I wanted to see.

If next year's trip covered less geography, you might be able to carve out a segment or two where you wouldn't need a car and could relax on faster trains. If you have no interest in Ronda and the white villages, Granada-Cordoba-Seville is easy by train, for example.

Wow! I’m glad i decided to post really early in our planning! 😃. It does sound like we’re biting off more than we should and are still missing some other opportunities. Since we did northern Spain just a few years ago, maybe we drop that and focus on some of your ideas in the East and south. Thank you!