Hello all,
My husband and I are going to Spain from Oct thru mid-November. We were initially thinking of staying in Valencia however, there are so many parts of Spain and Portugal we want to visit that we don’t think Valencia is central enough to use as our home base. What city would you recommend we stay in that is central to Sevilla, Madrid, Cordoba, Portugal.
Thank you!
I don't think there is a central "home base" for all of these. And, Portugal is a whole different country anyway.
You would be better off visiting and staying in each place. For example, a few days in Madrid, then Sevilla (visit to Cordoba) and finally Lisbon (to see a few day-trip in Portugal).
There is no central in Spain where you can just take day trips to Portugal. You can take a day trip to Sevilla from Cordoba or vice versa; although it is not something I would do you can take a day trip from Madrid to Cordoba or vice versa. Most that travel to Spain stay in different cities or different regions that they get to by train. You should fly into Valencia stay there x amount of days then take the train to Madrid and stay and then Seville and then to Portugal.
I would not try to use Valencia as a base for the whole country but, split your time between Sevilla, Madrid and either Granada or Valencia.
Short answer: Madrid if you are looking for a single base city from which to see Spain and Portugal. Most travel connections and in central Spain. Personally, I like to change cities as others have suggested.
Longer question: What will you do on your days you aren't going somewhere else? How many of those days will there be? Madrid has the most museums, palaces, etc. But other cities, such as Barcelona and Valencia have the sea. Malaga and Sevilla will be a little warmer, but further from everywhere else.
We spent almost 3 weeks in Spain last month. We started in Valenicia and spent time with a relative, then took we trains and buses to stay in Granada, Ronda, La Linea/Gibraltar, Tarifa/Morocco, Seville, flew back to Valencia then train up to Barcelona for a few days, then flew home. We logged in a lot of travel and walking miles, saw a lot, and had an enjoyable time.
Although Spain looks small on a map, it is a pretty big country and not all of it is connected by high speed rail. In fact, some of the cities we stayed in did not have direct buses between them, so we had to be creative and were able to cobble together different bus company routes to get from one place to another. We did one transfer in Malaga, and another was actually at a bus stop in San Pedro de la Alcantara. Be better to hop-scotch to different cities rather than try to do travels from a central location.
I made it more stressful working the travel itinerary less two weeks before our trip but it worked out great. Next time I am going to try to do things in a more leisurely fashion.
I agree with Nick. With as much time as you have I’d visit some of the main cities, but also visit some smaller cities, towns, and villages. You can see a lot with the time you have.
