Spain/Portugal Itinerary for 4 adults

I would concentrate my time in Spain and skip Gibraltar or Tangiers. I suggest including Sevilla. Bus and train service is very good in Spain and at least from Granada to Malaga or to Sevilla probably faster and more efficient than flying considering you would need to be at airports early for your flights.

Skip Roma.
Too much wasted travel time.

Spend more time in Lisboa.
There are plenty of attractions

Valencia-Granada has bus service, but it is a very long trip; I've done the trip in the opposite direction and can't give it a personal recommendation because my demented bus driver opted not to make all the standard comfort stops along the way (supposed to happen every 2 to 2-1/2 hours). Because of the way the express rail lines run (via Madrid), it takes at least 5-1/2 hours by fast train. Driving (along a different route) would take over 5 hours by the fastest route, according to ViaMichelin.com, so no real advantage there if you don't have stops planned along the way. There are no non-stop flights between Valencia and Granada.

You'll find no direct rail service from southern Spain to Lisbon; no trains cross the border in that area. There is bus service from Seville to Faro (and I think a few other places). You can pick up rail service in Faro. You can also make the entire trip by bus. Travel time will be fairly similar to what you run into between Valencia and Granada. TAP Air Portugal and RyanAir both have flights from Seville to Lisbon. I don't know whether that's an option every day. Check Skyscanner.com.

Spain is a very large country. You are proposing to cover a substantial part of it and then add on Gibraltar or Tangier, Lisbon and Rome. That is way, way more than I would try to accomplish in two weeks; that itinerary would have you spending a lot of time just moving from place to place. You could easily spend all your non-Valencia time in southern Spain, with more sightseeing time and less train/bus/flight time. Southern Spain has many interesting cities; Seville is really essential for a first trip to southern Spain, and it's large enough that I think it needs at least 3 full days (4 nights) on a trip like this. You haven't mentioned Cordoba, which is a lovely city, or historic Cadiz. There are also many atmospheric small towns worth a few hours, some accessible within an hour or two by train or (more often) bus.

If you want to see Morocco, I'd urge you to fly to Fes or Marrakech for a few days rather than settling for Tangier. Not only is Tangier a much less attractive option than the many other possibilities in Morocco, it's time-consuming to get to the ferry port from any of the Spanish towns most tourists want to visit. Morocco deserves a lot more than 2 or 3 days. It has flights from many cities in Europe, so you can add it to a future trip when you have more time.

Lisbon and Rome are both great destinations. The problem is that you really don't have enough time to justify traveling to either one.

Exactly how many nights will you be able to spend in Europe, not counting the overnight flight from North America? It's likely that at least some of your group won't really be functioning well on your arrival day, due to sleep-deprivation and jetlag, so if you are spending 13 nights on the ground in Europe, that gives you only 12 full sightseeing days. How many of those days will you want to spend in Valencia? If it were my trip (which it obviously is not), I'd be spending the rest of the time in Granada, Cordoba, Seville and Malaga. If you had an extra day or two, you could spend it seeing a bit of Madrid.

Have you looked at transatlantic flights yet? Schedules and fares vary a lot, depending on your origin, but on my trip to southern Spain I saved $500 by flying into Madrid rather than Seville or Malaga. That was the one-way difference, because I priced both itineraries flying home from London. If you need to fly home from Madrid, you'll need to spend at least your last night there.

I've never bothered with Gibraltar, so I don't have an informed opinion on that score.

Skip Tangier for sure, Morocco is nice, but NOT Tangier.

Your plan appears to end Malaga and restarts in Lisbon. Going by rail would take up lots of time, suggest finding air flight. If you rent a car there would be a huge drop charge to drop in Portugal if you rent in Spain.

Overall, that seems too all over the place. Spain is an amazing European destination with cities, restaurants, museums, natural beauty, and other touristy stuff on par with any country in the world. 14 days isn't an eternity, I would rather you spent more time in a few places rather than doing a whirlwind tour of Spain, Portugal, Morocco, and Rome in one trip. That sounds like you're never going to be able to catch your breath and enjoy your trip.

Where have you been in Spain? If you've never been, I would advise just stay in Spain, Valencia, Madrid, Sevilla, Cadiz, Granada, Barcelona, Cordoba, Bilbao, San Sebastian, tons of amazing places to visit.

@plectrude.
“Valencia, Madrid, Sevilla, Cadiz, Granada, Barcelona, Cordoba, Bilbao, San Sebastian” is 9 cities. Way too many.

This information is so helpful! Rome is just for a day, as we want to make a quick visit. With this great advice, we are trimming things down! Valencia - Granada - Seville and Lisbon. We WILL be back to Spain! How easy is it to drive in Spain? We will fly from the Seville area to Lisbon.

Driving in rural Spain is easy, but driving in its cities is a pain. If you only intend to visit the large cities you mentioned, I’d skip the car. A rental car makes sense when you’re visiting places not well served by public transportation or where public transportation is impractical due to its schedules.

Agree with so many of the above comments. Always consider, less is more. Spain alone is a feast. And not only Barcelona, Madrid and the Alhambra.

So, let me suggest possible elements of an alternative Spain-only itinerary that does involve car travel, even though you say you would prefer to not travel by car. I say this as another response (jaimeelsabio) mentions that travel between cities in Spain by car is easy. And I quite agree with that, as well as with the implication that once you get to town, you should then just walk or use city buses or, in Madrid or Barcelona, the Metro.

Your wintertime trip means you can enjoy being in Andalusia when it is not hot. Your plan leaves out Cordoba, Sevilla and the many white towns that often have the phrase “de la frontera” attached, as the boundary between Catholic Spain and Islamic Spain kept changing between the eighth and fifteenth centuries. (E.g., Arcos de la Frontera, Vejer de la Frontera). In the spring of 2005, we spent about 8 or 9 days on a loop trip though Andalusia by car.

The architecture and the history of all three monotheistic religions are there to discover and explore. In our travels, we entirely skipped the Costa del Sol, even though our travels in 1999 and 2005 with friends who lived part time in Madrid and part time in Extremedura were all by car. Even then, the highway network was excellent and relatively long distances were easily covered at speeds up to 90 mph.

Of course, there is also Roman history to discover. Ancient remains include the Ruta Plata (north from Sevilla up to Extremedua), the silver road. Along the way, Merida has an ancient, well- preserved Roman bridge, a beautifully intact Temple of Diana and more ruins, yet. From there, you can continue to Salamanca with its amazing medieval university buildings, Plaza Major and Baroque cathedrals and then on to Segovia with its Roman Aqueduct that carried water as late as the early 20th Century.

Segovia is then about an hour or 90 minutes from Madrid, by car. Such a drive from Sevilla to Salamanca and Madrid with stops and sights along the way would be enjoyable over three days.

Madrid deserves additional time; one could easily spend two full days seeing only its three principal museums, the Prado, the Thyssen and the Reina Sofia … probably in that order.

This suggestion does not allow time for Barcelona as part of a 14 day trip. For Barcelona, add 3 or 4 days. You could ditch the car on arrival in Madrid and take a train to Barcelona.

IMHO, No Rome. No Lisbon. Probably no Tangiers. Gibraltar? Well you’d be in the neighborhood, but we just blew by on the highway without crossing into that British outpost, even as the Rock was plainly visible. We had too much to see in Andalusia; that day we were on our way from Vejer to Granada, via Ronda.

Anyway, you’re apparently early in your trip planning, so I thought I’d add this alternative to your planning process, in light of the comments by others rather than your own inquiry. If it’s exactly what you didn’t want or need, so be it.

In any event, enjoy your travels.