I am in the early planning stages of a 2027 pre-cruise trip to see both Spain and Portugal, as my husband and friends have never been. I am finding, however, that looking at this through my current travel style/needs/constraints is VERY different from that of a recent college grad with a backpack, with my "through-the-back-door book", and no firm travel dates. Traveling between the two, at least from a train perspective, seems to be about as challenging as it was before! Which didn't matter much then, when I could go where the wind blew me, but does now.
Looking at it, there is absolutely no way we can hit everything we want in either country. We need to end in Barcelona, but have flexibility on where we fly into and how long.
One option I have mapped out is this: 4 cities, 4 different hotels (or Airbnb), with the longest travel time between locations being 4 hours. I hadn't originally planned on Madrid, but Porto before Lisbon seems challenging with jet lag, and getting from Porto to other locations just becomes too much time spent traveling versus seeing things. If we decide Seville and Granada are a priority, it really seems Portugal has to go. Likewise, for the Algarve, Spain has to go beyond ending in Barcelona. I don't see a good way to get Morocco in there, must as I'd love to.
All ideas welcome! Nothing is booked other than the cruise, but realistically, this is probably about as many days/nights I can pull off before the cruise (Malta, Greece, Italy).
- Travel/Lisbon
- Lisbon full day
- Sintra (day trip from Lisbon, 40-minute train ride)
- Lisbon to Porto (3–4-hour train ride)
- Porto full day
- Fly from Porto to Madrid (80-minute flight)
- Madrid full day
- Train from Madrid to Barcelona (2.5-3 hour train ride)
- Barcelona full day
- Barcelona full day
- Cruise departure