Portugal - Barcelona 17 Days

This is such a broad question and Spain has so many different kinds of things to see and do. My suggestion is to first get the RS guides for Spain and Portugal and read through to get an overview of the countries. Then you'll have a better idea of the types of things that you don't want to miss, or what regions you want to concentrate on. The time of year you're traveling makes a difference too. When you come back with it narrowed down it will be much easier to help you.

I would spend first three nights in Lisbon and rent a car to goto Evora - 2 nights to explore Alejento and then drive south to Algarve (3 nights) and the get across border (pick up new car maybe or train across ??) . I don't know the train situation but I would see if there is a train and last 9 nights exploring up towards Barcelona - don't know this area but you have plenty of time. I Love Portugal but haven't been to Spain in about 26 years ( boy THAT makes.me feel old!)

Transport between Portugal and Spain is limited. If you do it by car you need to check the drop-off fees - they're likely to be high. You can take a bus from the Algarve to Seville. The best method is the night train from Lisbon to Madrid. You could easily spend 17 days in either country alone. However, if that's all you have I'd spend at least a week in Portugal split between Lisbon (with day trips) and either Coimbra or Porto, and the rest in Spain - don't miss Granada.

Another option for you would be to head north out of Lisbon toward Santiago de Compostela, then from Santiago east along the beautiful Costa Verde and up into France toward Biarritz. Then continue east along the north side of the Pyrenees before you eventually cut south back into Spain and over to the Costa Brava, then down to Barcelona. The route is very driveable - we've done it and it was one of our favorite trips in years of travel. The route is full of interesting places to see along the way in all 3 countries - too many to list. With 17 days - if you decide to drive - you might want to look into lease/buyback instead of rental. The price may be better, and lease/buyback has some advantages such as full insurance coverage and 24/7 roadside assistance.

Spend a couple days in Porto. Search out buildings with the famous blue tiles. The Andante Card is great because it is cheap 3.65 euros/day and you can use it on all public transportation, including the very modern Metro, bus, tram and funicular.

Hi. Thank you for your feedback. Sorry about being so broad about our plans. We will arrive in Lisbon the middle of Sept and depart from Barcelona the 1st of October. We figured we'd spend 3 days in Portugal (only time for a sampling) before departing for Spain (our main focus). We'd like to visit the Rock of Gibraltor and Morocco. Then make our way up to Madrid and finally Barcelona. We didn't have plans to rent/lease a car as we heard it's dicey to park and the trains/buses were better (?). Thank you for responding to me.

I think that to travel by train from Portugal to Spain you will need to go to Madrid, but you could take buses from Portugal to other parts of Spain (such as Andalucia). In Andalucia there are trains to the major cities and buses to serve the rest of the region...such as Gibraltar. You could easily spend a week or more in the south seeing Sevilla, Cordoba, Granada, Gibraltar, Cadiz, especially if you are dependent on train and bus timetables. I'm not sure that you have time to do the above plus Morocco, hopefully somebody else will weigh in on that. If you decide to concentrate on Andalucia you might want to rent a car for a few days there depending on what the bus timetables look like. Then up to Madrid for a few days, 3 hours to Barcelona on the AVE, and Barcelona for a few days. The Renfe website is pretty easy for checking timetables, prices, and duration of trips but often difficult to purchase tickets online from the U.S. This bus website might help you: http://www.andalucia.com/travel/bus/home.htm