First two weeks Oct 2024: Northern Spain Advice

You can’t get much further apart in Spain going from Barcelona to Santiago de Compostela. I always get a rental car, but always stop in small towns and villages en route. You may want to look into the fast trains between cities. Others will know about them.

Santiago de Compostela is worth a couple full days if you’ve never been there previously. If you make it there try to visit the pilgrims statues at Monte de Gozo. It’s a couple miles from town.

There are more places to stop than you have time for. Once you select your mode of transportation and route you’ll have a better idea of places to consider stopping at en route.

San Sebastián is fabulous. Great old town with lots of tapas bars, beautiful beach, kinda crazy old amusement park on the hill overlooking the town. OTOH, Bilbao has a Guggenheim museum and a cool moving bridge. And probably also lots of tapas bars. The coastal area between them is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and I wish now that I had rented a car to see that. Next time, I guess. I would say stay in SS and rent a car to visit Bilbao (otherwise accessible by train) and the coast (possibly accessible by bus or by private tour operator; I tried to talk the bus there but missed it because the bus stop wasn't in the station, and by the time I found, I was too late).

The trip between San Sebastian and Bilbao is much faster by bus than by train, but the slow traIn trip is quite scenic.

I much preferred Bilbao to San Sebastian. Bilbao has a larger historic district, and it's not full of tourist-packed pintxo bars. In addition to the Guggenheim, there's also the Museum of Fine Arts. San Sebastian has the San Telmo Museum and (outside of town) the Chillida-Leku Museum. I was only able to see the Guggenheim and the San Telmo because the other two were closed at the time of my 2016 visit.

As already mentioned, there are many possible stops one could make while traveling across northern Spain. You'll need to be selective and be aware that you may have some links requiring use of buses rather than trains.

One thing to be aware of is that the northern coast set of Spain tends to be cool, overcast and wet even in mid-summer. The bonus is that the alrea is green.. I found the scenery nicest in tne Basque Country, Galicia and in the Picos de Europa. A car would be especially handy in the Picos. There's little bus service in general, and I'm not sure any of it runs outside July and August. I was limited to places accessible by train and bus.

Some comments:

• Real flamenco belongs to southern and southeastern Spain, but you can see some shows in Barcelona and Madrid. None in Donostia-San Sebastian, Bilbao or Santiago de Compostela.
• Tango is Argentinian, I cannot think of any place to watch this as a show in Spain.
• Santiago de Compostela is at the very western end of Spain, and Spain is a large country (in Europe), so take this into account when calculating your driving.
• The northern coast is, as mentioned before, frequently rainy, lush green, very mountainous, cooler and very different to the rest of Spain in climate, food, landscapes, languages,...and come also prepared with some raingear.
• Bilbao offers the Guggenheim Museum, also the Fine Arts (undergoing renovation works), and a beautiful architecture all over the city. Also, a wonderful historical old quarter, full of life and with many bars offering pintxos (not tapas). The Hanging Bridge is a UNESCO World Heritage Monument and something really worth seeing, it´s 9 miles outside of Bilbao.
• Donostia-San Sebastian is a beautiful city, with three beaches (but expect nothing like a beach resort, no outdoor pools and no bars or amenities by the beaches, it´s a rainy area and it´s a working town). At least a day there would be my advice, but no major attractions other than the city itself (and its gastronomy, it´s also full of pintxos bars...which are not a meal for us but just an appetizer).
• Both Bilbao and Donostia-San Sebastian have a funicular train for the very best views of the city.
• The ride from Bilbao to Santiago de Compostela is around 8h, by car.

San Sebastián is fabulous. Great old town with lots of tapas bars, beautiful beach, kinda crazy old amusement park on the hill overlooking the town. OTOH, Bilbao has a Guggenheim museum and a cool moving bridge. And probably also lots of tapas bars. The coastal area between them is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and I wish now that I had rented a car to see that. Next time, I guess. I would say stay in SS and rent a car to visit Bilbao (otherwise accessible by train) and the coast (possibly accessible by bus or by private tour operator; I tried to talk the bus there but missed it because the bus stop wasn't in the station, and by the time I found, I was too late).

Some minor corrections: it´s pintxos, not tapas, a very different concept. The bridge is not in Bilbao, but in Getxo or Portugalete, easily accessible on the subway (cheap, safe, frequent, fast) or metro, as we call it. The train from Donostia-San Sebastian to Bilbao (and viceversa) is slow as it stops in every town, but very scenic. I would take the bus, instead. The only UNESCO World Heritage Site in this area is the Puente Bizkaia or moving bridge, as you mention it in your post.

Some places you may want to visit, if you drive from D-SS to Bilbao, are Getaria (home to the first person that circumnnavegated the world -no, not Magellan-, Elcano, and also to the best dress designer ever, Balenciaga, with a beautiful dress museum), Bermeo, historical Gernika (aka Guernica), Mundaka and amazing San Juan de Gaztelugatxe (but it´s a long climb for this one).

Thank you for all of the input!!! It is all very helpful. After spending more time looking at travel times by various methods and times of day they are available, I think am leaning toward just grabbing a short flight to Santiago de Compostela after a few days in Barcelona. Then renting a car for the drive across to Bilbao, stopping when we see something of interest. Then either keep the car for another day or so for the trip over to San Sebastian and back (day trip). Then the train from Bilbao to Madrid, spending the rest of the trip there.
@mikelBasqueGuide Does that sound like a reasonable plan?

I also appreciate all of the input on sites and activities.

Sounds good to me, the northern coast of Spain is spectacular...and very far from the typical idea of Spain.