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Help me plan my 17 days in Spain!

Posted by on

Hey everyone,

I currently am planning an approximately month-long trip in Portugal in Spain. In December, I will be staying in Porto, Portugal for 9 days, and the rest of it will be spent in Spain. The thing is, I only have booked plane tickets to Portugal, and I have no idea where in Spain I want to stay. I just don't know what the cities are actually like there. For example, is Madrid or Barcelona really metropolitan? I would love to see the architecture there, but I also want to see places with character. I would totally be willing for a multi-city trip, maybe 2 or 3 cities out of the 17-day Spain span.

Also, how does one take the train between these cities? What train companies are most reliable, and are there many stations? Please give me any advice about Spain and tell me your experience in different cities! Thank you all

Posted by
6790 posts

The first thing you should do is watch the Rick Steves videos on Spain/Portugal, and get/read the books - that will give you a better idea of what's worth seeing, and what's of interest to you. I suggest you stop detailed planning (especially buying air tickets) until you do that. You have time to do that. Don't skip this step now and assume you can figure it out later.

I assume (and hope) you have not yet booked your return flight. Getting between Portugal and Spain is more time consuming and complicated than most first-time visitors expect - the two countries are not well connected by rail (far from it) which many first-timers expect.

If (as I suspect) you have never been to Portugal before, I'd question your plan to spend all your time in one location. Lisbon is a wonderful, under-appreciated city, not to be missed IMHO.

Important: If you have a ticket flying in to Portugal, you should fly home from Spain - typically Madrid or Barcelona.

Posted by
4180 posts

Personally, I think you should sit down, buy a few travel books about Spain (Rick Steves or Lonely Planet are good starts), and do some more research on what are your interests and about Spain as a whole. Once you have narrowed down a few cities/interests, I would then come back to this forum and start asking about specifics. This would help us in giving you more useful information pertinent to your specific interests.

But just to give you a bit of a taste - Spain has one of the best high speed train systems in the world (the AVE). Spain itself offers much diversity in terms of geography, culture, and cuisine.

From the great green north (Asturias, Basque Country) which looks like something out of Ireland - to the golden heartland (Castilla) a mountainous land dotted with vineyards, castles, and ancient ruins - to the sunny south (Andalucia) with its whitewashed villages and Moorish palaces - and the Mediterranean coast (Catalonia/Valencia) with its wild coastlines and vibrant food scene.

Hopefully this will help narrow down what you are interested in! :)

Posted by
7175 posts

At first glance some thing like this would give you a great overview of the main centres and top sights in Spain.

Fly from Porto (via Madrid) to Granada (3N) for the Alhambra
Train to Seville (3N)
Train to Cordoba (2N) for the Mezquita
Train to Madrid (4N)
Train to Barcelona (5N)
DEPART Barcelona

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