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Itinerary Feedback Requested: Barcelona --> San Sebestian --> Picos de Europa

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Hi everyone, your feedback, advice, and tips would be much appreciated for our Northern Spain itinerary. We have booked our flights to/from Barcelona in mid-June and will have 11 full days for exploring. We plan on doing Barcelona at the end of our trip and would like to use the first several days exploring Northern Spain by car. Here is my itinerary so far:

Day 1: Arrive in Barcelona after an overnight flight, explore a bit, rest up and stay the night.

Day 2: Head North towards San Sebastian. We were thinking of breaking the drive up and stopping in Zaragoza for one night. Any other suggestions?

Day 3: Leave Zaragoza in the morning, arrive in San Sebastian, explore, stay the night

Day 4: San Sebastian

Day 5: Leave San Sebastian and head West towards Picos de Europa. This is where we're stuck. Right now we're thinking of stopping in Bilboa or Santillana del Mar to break up the drive. Any other suggestions?

Day 6: Continue West and arrive at Picos de Europa, explore, stay the night

Day 7: Picos de Europa, stay the night

Day 8: We will probably have to head back towards Barcelona - at this time we're planning on heading back East, most likely Bilboa, to return car rental and hop on a train. Arrive in Barcelona later that night.

Days 9, 10 & 11: 3 fulls days in Barcelona

Please let me know if you feel this itinerary is too ambitious. We road-tripped through Netherlands, France & Germany for a few weeks last summer at what I feel is a similar pace, and we didn't mind it too much (especially since we were stopping in smaller, non-major cities). We'd really really LOVE to be able to explore Picos de Europa, but are willing to sacrifice it if it means having a more realistic, relaxing itinerary. Would sticking to just Barcelona and San Sebastian be a better idea? With 11 days, I'm just having mixed feelings whether just two cities would be perfect or too slow.

Thanks in advance for your suggestions!

Posted by
27132 posts

The Picos de Europa is a lovely area. I was stuck with public transportation so took a one-day bus tour. The old stone town of Potes is extremely atmospheric. You might consider staying there.

I prefer Bilbao to San Sebastian--less touristy and with a larger historic area. Don't limit your visit to the Guggenheim.

The tricky part here, I think, is figuring out how much time you need in Barcelona itself. Have you made a list of your sightseeing targets in that city? There are many popular places for which you'll need to pre-purchase (usually timed) tickets to avoid terrible ticket lines and possible sell-outs. If you don't have much interest in the modernista sights and don't want to overdose on the art museums, spending 3 nights in the city (giving you 2 full days there and a few hours) may be OK. If you do want to see a bunch of those ticketed sights, I think fitting the itinerary together may be challenging. Who knows how much time you'll want to spend at Sight A, or how long it will take to get from there to Sight B?

There is a great deal to Catalunya beyond Barcelona. You could easily spend your entire trip in Catalunya and feel you need to return.

Posted by
11159 posts

Consider flying Bilboa back to Barcelona since you have limited time.

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