Hi all. We have set a tentative travel path, and I'm trying to figure out how many days and night in each place. We have 11 nights. I am tentatively thinking as follows: Madrid - 3 nights, Seville - 1 night, Algarve - 2 nights, Lisbon -5 nights (with possible day trips to Evora, Sintra and/or Coimbra.)
We will have a car. All thoughts or suggestions are welcome?
I don't quite understand the point in spending only one night in Sevilla.
There is so much to see & do in Sevilla, but spending only a few hours there is definitely not ideal, imo.
Have you considered flying from Madrid to Lisbon?
If I had 11 nights, 10 days, I'd choose Spain or Portugal but not both, but that's just me.
My understanding is that you may be charged a hefty fee when renting a car in one country & returning it in a different country. Will this apply in your case?
Enjoy your trip!
I agree with Priscilla. Not only is one night in Seville not worth the detour, but you'll have a drop fee picking up a car in Spain and leaving it in Portugal - potentially very high.
If you do want to see these places in 11 nights, I'd start in Madrid, fly to Faro for the Algarve (Skyscanner shows one nonstop flight on the day I checked), then pick up the car and make your way to Lisbon. Drop the car as soon as you get to Lisbon (you'll see why once you're there; I found it scary to just watch the driving!). Or, you may not need a car at all, if you want to make Lisbon a base for daytrips. However, Evora and Coimbra are just at the edge of comfortable daytrip distance for me.
Do consider Priscilla's suggestion to just see one country on this trip.
I appreciate the input. But for reasons I won't get into, we fly into Madrid and fly out of Lisbon 12 days later. We do not want to fly once were there, so it's either a car drive ( in which case I think this is the preferred route) or I suppose, we could spend some Time in Madrid, and then take the train to Lisbon and spend most of our time there. Seville is a stop along the way.
Does anyone know anything about the train from Madrid to Lisbon?
The Deutsche Bahn web site says there's only a night train, taking about 11-1/2 hours. Considerably faster is a train/bus combo with just over 2 hours by train to Navalmoral de la Mata, a layover of about an hour, then about 5 hours by bus to Lisbon. This latter info is from Rome2Rio.com. I've never traveled between Madrid and Lisbon myself.
Yes, the train route is overnight only.
Bdl,
Thanks for clarifying.
My apologies to you as I realize that my first reply was not helpful to you & I should have asked for more details.
Here are some thoughts you may consider...
Try to change your inbound flight directly to Lisbon (instead of Madrid)
If #1 is not an option, then travel to Sevilla via AVE (high speed train) after visiting Madrid, or on day of arrival, if you want to spend more time in Sevilla.
Take Damas Bus from Sevilla to Faro
Take train from Faro to Lisbon.
I've not traveled to Portugal (yet), but looking at a map, it looks like a day trip to Sintra is very feasible, however, Evora & Coimbra are too far, imo, for a day trip.
Have a wonderful trip!
Edit to add... I would not recommend traveling on the overnight train (Madrid to Lisbon), as you may not get any sleep.
We did almost this same itinerary last summer. We took the train from Marid to Seville, a bus from Seville to Lagos, and a train (one transfer) from Lagos to Lisbon. The bus from Seville to Lagos took about 6 hours because of frequent stops, but there was one that was faster which we did not get on due to not getting the tickets ahead of time. I'm not sure that I would want to spend 5 nights in Lisbon and would instead add a night in Seville. We did a day trip to Sintra from Lisbon that we really enjoyed and could have spent more time in this quaint town. I would have to agree after watching the traffic in Lisbon that I would not have wanted to have driven there.
