spain/portugal holiday

Although 6 or 7 weeks is a nice, long vacation, Spain is a large country with very widely scattered top sights. You can spend a lot of time moving from place to place. When that movement is around Madrid, you won't be seeing very interesting scenery. If you truly want to see something other than the top cities everyone visits (Madrid, Barcelona, Granada, Seville, Cordoba), there will probably be a lot of buses involved, and you'll likely need to limit the area you cover rather than ranging over the entire country.

I suggest researching weather patterns in the various regions (not just the average monthky temperatures) to see where you think you'll be most comfortable. I know that in early April I would want to be in Andalucia, because I do not like the combination of chilly and wet.

If there are some places already on your "definitely" list, tell us what they are, and we can suggest interesting options that might fit in with your itinerary.

I, too, like to stay near train and bus stations, but I've learned there's a big disadvantage to doing so in Spain when the stations are far from the restaurant district(s): Spaniards eat very, very late, and I am not remotely interested in spending 30 minutes walking back to my hotel at 11:30 PM. It's not a safety issue, because the entire population is out on the street at that hour; it's just that I need to sleep!

Springtime means festivals in Spain, with high season prices and crowds on the downside, but special experiences on the upside. Decide if you want to see and be part of them or avoid them. Semana Santa (Holy Week) from Palm Sunday thru Easter Sunday is huge in all of Andalucia, a couple of weeks later is the Feria in Sevilla. Others that pop into my mind are the horse fair in Jerez and the patios in Cordoba, but there are others as well. Also consider the weather, Andalucia is the hottest part of Spain, the north (Pyrenees) is cooler.

Much of Spain is easily reached by train. The larger population centers are connected by high speed trains, but some of the remoter places are best reached by car. Portugal and Spain are not well connected by roads or trains. Most people either rent a car in one country and loop through part of the other one and going back to return the car. Or they fly. It's usually better to stay in the historic center where the sights are than near the train station and "commute."

Spain is large and there are many things to see and do. I suggest you get a comprehensive guide book - either buy one or get one from your public library (even one that's several years out of date), then do a little research online and decide what interests you. Once you have a list, we can help you choose a route and allocate your time.

Thankyou so much for replying to us and with such helpful information. Would you travel to the south of the countries first to take advantage of the cooler weather. Would it be best to stay in a smaller place at Easter ( I think about the 14th April 2017) to avoid the crowds. Would it be smarter to prop ourselves in say 6 to 8 or so places for a 5 day/week at a time and commute to satellite towns by train/bus. Reading the guide books we have from the library it's overwhelming! It all sounds fantastic. I have marked on our map a few possible names of places eg. Barcelona, Girona, Tarragona, Zaragoza, Valencia, Cuenca, Toledo, Madrid, El Escorial, Segovia, Salamanca, Caceres, Trujillo, Cordoba, Granada, Jerez de la Frontera, Cadiz, San Sebastian, Bilbao, Burgos, Leon, Oviedo, Santiago de Compostela.....We watched a great continental train journey program the other evening and the host travelled by train from A Coruna - tip of north west Spain, to Santiago de Compostela to Porto in Portugal, Vesuvo, Coimbra then Lisbon. We like a short boat trip (a few hours or a day) on the river if there was one. And of course there's another list of possible places to visit in the rest of Portugal! We realise that we can't visit them all and a slower pace and a few special places away from the hordes are usually the places you remember most. We only take a small pull along suitcase each with us so staying in the older parts of the towns sounds appealing, especially if they're only a km or so from the station. We love wandering the towns, taking in the history, hearing it from a good walking guide if possible. Eating where the locals eat, people watching and trying to learn a little of the language in order to communicate. Love shopping at the local markets for food, or deli's, local supermarkets perhaps (?). Thankyou both for reading this email.

Over 7 weeks I would look at something along the lines of this routing ...
Barcelona (5)
Zaragoza (2)
Pamplona (2)
San Sebastián (3)
Bilbao (3)
Santander/Santillana de Mar (2)
Oviedo (2)
Santiago de Compostela (3)
Porto - Douro (3)
Coimbra (2)
Lisbon (4)
Faro (2)
Sevilla (4)
Córdoba (2)
Granada (3)
Madrid - Toledo (4)
Valencia (3)

Your list of cities is remarkably similar to the places I've stayed this summer (in 11 weeks...) I skipped Andalucia, Valencia, Tarragona and El Escorial and included some other spots. Those are all good destinations, and I especially liked the following side trips:

• Teruel (from Zaragoza, which is is nice enough, but I liked Teruel even more, for its Mudejar towers)
• Hondarribia (from San Sebastian)
• Viktoria-Gasteiz (inland city, from Bilbao, but worth an overnight, in which case I'd highly recommend a day-trip to the hill town of Laguardia)
• Gijon (from Oviedo; coastal city with some nice early 20th century buildings as well as a small old quarter)
• in Galicia I especially liked Pontevedra and A Coruna, both within an hour of Santiago de Compostela, but I spent 2 or 3 nights in each. They're very pleasant for wandering and might be OK in April/May since they trend warmer than the surrounding area.

I'm not helping with your time problem, am I?

Seriously, you might try thinking of this as the first of two trips to the Iberian Peninsula. Put together a route that makes geographic sense and allows you to see some of the less-touristed (at least by Americans) spots without skipping over a bunch of places you really want to see but don't have time for. Leave the rest of Spain for a second trip. Doing that will allow you to spend less time on trains and buses (and hanging around train and bus stations), so you'll actually be able to see more places.

I take a lot of day-trips, figuring that I may not get back to the area again, but for me they work best if the destination is a rather small city or town with no more than one real sight--a destination I'm mainly visiting because it's picturesque and I want to wander around the historic district. The oddball mealtimes in Spain are an extra challenge. I don't want to eat a big meal at 9 PM, much less at 11 PM, so I try to get a full lunch, but that cuts into sightseeing time on a day-trip. And transportation to smaller cities isn't always convenient; if you need to make a connection somewhere, it gets pretty difficult.

A major advantage of day-trips is that they normally don't require advance booking, so you retain some schedulong flexibility. If the weather is beautiful, take the desired day-trip; if it's rainy, stay in town and run from museum to museum.

We're so grateful for this information. Thankyou for taking the time to reply to our enquiry. We shall study your suggestions.