Help needed: Barcelona, Seville and Madrid/Lisbon on 9 day itinerary?

Nine days, stick to one country. In fact, consider cutting to just two cities.

If you do Madrid, you must do day trips to Toledo and Segovia.
Seville is wonderful, but if you do Barcelona, consider using the high speed train to Madrid and do five days in Barcelona, then four in Madrid.

Do you have 9 days or 9 nights? That's a big difference. 9 full days means you have 10 nights. 9 nights means you have 8 full days. I always plan my trips by nights.

So, regardless of what you have, I agree with geovagriffith that you should stay in one country. You will waste a lot of time by traveling to another country. So I recommend Option #2. However, I might delete the 3rd city; it really depends on how many nights you have on the ground.

Some possibilities:
Barcelona - 4 or 5 nights
Madrid - 4 nights to include a daytrip to Toledo

OR
Barcelona - 4 or 5 nights
Seville - 4 nights
Depending on flight schedules, you could fly into Barcelona and home from Seville

OR (if it's important to visit 3 places)
Barcelona - 4 nights
Seville - 3 nights
Madrid - 2 nights

Thank you for the replies.
We have 9 nights. We are not that big art or museum lovers. Hence we may get bored after a bit. But we like local feel and culture and sightseeing.
Is Madrid worth it after seeing Barcelona and Seville? I'm not sure we'll be able to enjoy Madrid for 3-4 days.

Id really like to see if I can squeeze Lisbon or Paris to get the different experience. Is it doable.

I'd really like to see if I can squeeze Lisbon or Paris to get the different experience. Is it doable.

Paris during or after the Olympics? I think Paris is an "avoid during and immediately before/after the Olympics" location right now.

We did a little more than 9 days just for Seville & Madrid (with Cordoba a day trip), so I would recommend similar - no Lisbon, no Paris, no Barcelona - unless you really just want a high level "taste of Spain" with three travel days in the mix. Fly to Madrid and either immediately train to Seville for half the time, train back to Madrid for the final half, fly home would be my advice.

So, 4 nights Seville, stop at Cordoba for a full day (or single overnight), and 4 or 5 nights Madrid.

Paris, Barcelona, & Lisbon are all LOVELY and worth their own time and not as an afterthought/rush. Paris alone is worth weeks :D

You could fly into Seville and out of Madrid, or, like us, keep it a little simpler with just a direct flight in and out of Madrid. Play with flights and your options. Flights are usually faster, but there is, for me, a benefit to a direct flight somewhere, getting off the plane and moving/stretching/eating real food, and then navigating onto other modes of transportation that are less cooped up than flying.

It would be right after Olympics like reaching Paris on 12th.

I wouldn't want to skip Barcelona. So definitely Barcelona and Seville. Question is what to do for the third city.

Ah they are all great cities! Is there any city better than Paris?

I don't think you can go wrong though. Personally, I'd take Paris over Madrid or Lisbon. I'd take Madrid over Lisbon. But then Lisbon is nice too!

Happy travels!

The first time that I went to Spain, in 2017, I stayed in three cities. I flew into Madrid and spent four nights, which included day trips to Segovia & Toledo. Then I took the train to Seville and spent two nights there. Finishing up the trip, I took the train from Seville to Barcelona and spent four nights there, so for a total of ten nights in Spain, flying home from Barcelona. With only nine nights, I might skip either Madrid or Seville, since Barcelona seems to be your priority. I would definitely not go to Lisbon on this trip.

I've been back to both Madrid and Barcelona since then, as even four nights weren't enough to see all that I wanted to see in each city (including side trips from the cities). Would love to go back to Seville sometime, too.

Thank you Sherry.
Yeah after reading the replies, I am thinking I will stick to Spain this time, and see how I can do justice to the places.

Now I need to come up with an itinerary to cover the two or three cities in 9 days.

Barcelona
Seville
Madrid

Per usual, you are getting the advice to do less. It's not exactly what you asked about but it is the staple of this forum. If one asks which three cities of these 5 cities I should see, the answer will be don't see three. See two.

Why does this happen? If you look at the advice given by Rick Steves in his country guides in his book and on this website, he doesn't do that. He does the opposite really. He's the expert. If you look at sample itineraries of just all about all tour companies, they too don't loiter in two cities when three are possible. Get out of your comfort zone says Rick Steves!

But then folks who post frequently on this forum are experts too. I learn a lot from them. The regulars typically have been to Europe dozens of times. They know their stuff. But they aren't into survey trips any longer. They've done that. They tell you that you need a week to do Barcelona or Madrid or Seville or Lisbon or Paris. If you want to see three, then you need at least three weeks! It's only math!

And they got a point. Spend more time in Barcelona and you get see more of what that city has offer! And Barcelona is great!

But so is Lisbon. So is Seville. How to allocate time? Choices. The tyranny of free will!

Here is my take: Fly into Barcelona, then fly to Seville and then fly either to Lisbon or Paris. Or do just two cities. You can't go wrong!

Yes, thanks David.

Skip Madrid and you miss Toledo which is amazing.

yeah, hadn't considered Toledo. I thought since I was doing Seville, I will get that Spanish feeling and can skip other towns and reserve those for a second trip sometime in the future.

What is a "Spanish" feeling?

If I just go to Miami in the USA, do I have a USA feeling? If I just travel to Liverpool, do I have a "British" feeling?
Spain is as unique and varied as any other country in the world!

My recommendations--definitely skip Lisbon--you need to see much more of the country to have a "Portuguese" feeling.

If someone held me to a choice, I would recommend #2, which will be a jet set of jumping from place to place without any depth of learning, and your travel logistics would be busy, but you would certainly hit a few Spanish highlights. I dislike having to constantly check in and out of hotels, and having to live out of a suitcase, so I try to allow for some longer stays when I design my itineraries.

Is this your first time in Europe?
Maybe you could just do four days in Madrid and four in Paris. Then you could take day trips from each capital--from Madrid to Toledo and Segovia, from Paris to Versailles, and maybe Rouen and Giverny. You could see the great museums and monuments in each city and have a little time to explore.

I completely disagree that Barcelona is a "must" just because it has a beach. If you are planning on returning to Spain, I would wait until you take a cruise someday out of Barcelona and visit then. Additionally, going to the South of Spain to visit Sevilla means there are many other wonderful places to visit that tourists rave about: Granada, Córdoba, Málaga, Cádiz, Ronda--and many beaches!!

I would recommend reading a lot more about all of these places and watching some travel videos. Next you should investigate travel possibilities--train, plane, car? You have not said anything about budget, and that may have an impact as well.

Best wishes with all your planning!

You really want to visit Barcelona and Seville, and you aren't excited about art museums and Madrid. You think you might get bored in Madrid.

So maybe this will work:
Barcelona - 4 nights (don't forget you will be getting over jet lag in Barcelona, and it's a huge city with lots of interesting sites)
Granada - 2 nights (the Alhambra is amazing)
Seville - 3 nights

So, fly into Barcelona and fly home from Seville.

I actually like kwmkoo’s itinerary.

However if Madrid is more convenient because of flights, but doesn’t really call your name, you can definitely visit Segovia and/or Toledo as day trips and get a feel for Madrid in the evenings.

Any of these itineraries you pick will be a quick sample, so there’s no bad choice. Just practical choices putting the places together based on your tolerance for flights and costs - things we don’t know.

I do agree that staying in Spain makes more sense. (But I don’t always make sense with my trips….)

PhilaLady, kmkwoo, Texas mom, thank you for your suggestions and insights

It's not our first trip to Europe. We also prefer to spend more time on individual places to get an immersive experience of the place and culture. Unfortunately, I have realized travel to Europe isn't happening as often as I thought it would. So have to make the most of it when we get a chance. Making things tricky this time is a specific tight window of 9-10 days due to schedule of diff family members. Didn't want to further delay booking for further research into the places. I made the call to include Lisbon to get an idea of that place.

If we make another trip to Spain or Portugal (again, with a cruise or otherwise, I'm sure there will be plenty of other places to cover).

All that said, after reading through some of the forums and replies, I decided against Paris this time and ended up booking flights into Barcelona and out of Lisbon (with the in between itinerary yet to be confirmed).

As much as Id love to see Toledo, Segovia from Madrid, may have to skip them this time. I'm leaning towards Barcelona 3 days, then Seville 2-3 days and then fly to Lisbon for 2-3 days. May be do a day trip from Seville to Cordoba or Cadiz. Either this or replace Seville with Madrid+Toledo.

Thank you