Spain/Portugal Itinerary Critique

So essentially this is a 5-city trip, although we will have one evening and morning in Madrid. We were going to skip it altogether this trip, but getting to Portugal was difficult without it. We didn't want to fly into Lisbon and then go straight to Port when we were going to be flying home via Lisbon.
We also prefer flying BA as they have a preferable itinerary for their direct flight from SEA and it works well with the layovers going to BCN and coming from LIS. Plus, both short hops will still be on BA flights. Also, we carry on our luggage although we may check for Ryanair and understand the fees included.
What would be the best way to go about the BCN-Granada leg also? We could night train, day train, and I didn't check about flights (vueling?, click?, easyjet?)yet.
Thanks for advice.

I have been to where you are going and I think you will be spending a great deal of time in getting from A to B just in transit. Your cities warrant more than 1 day also. And if you are in Porto , the Douro Valley is a must!!! Madrid is also great for 2 day visit. Sevilla and the adjacent Arcos de la Frontera is a do not miss. Unless you are meeting family or are not flexible I would adjust your itin. your fare is quite good. E if you want add. help.

Thanks for the feedback
Pretty much all of our destinations will get more than one full day, with Barcelona getting two full days. After looking at your suggestions, it doesn't look like the number of places to visit would really change - thus leaving us in the same situation that you mention.
3/27 is my birthday and I decided a while back that I'd spend the day in Porto - likely sipping Port. So that day doesn't change. You mention more time in Madrid, but that would be at the expense of another area. I don't want to do only the big cities. We did that on our Italy trip in 2007 and it left us wishing we had spent less time in Rome, added another small Tuscan town, and added a day to Venice.
I looked at Rick's 3-week Spain/Portugal itinerary and it makes 5 towns in 12 days seem much less ambitious. I wish we could take more time, but it doesn't look like it will happen this trip. The only way to remove the 'in-transit' time would be to remove a city. Replacing one with another won't change that. To get the lower airfare, we need to fly into and out of main cities, which would be BCN, MAD and LIS. So working E to W seems to make the most sense. I tried figuring out a way that we could fly directly into Port from any of the smaller towns in SW Spain, but none of them fly in. If we fly into Lisbon, it sort of defeats the purpose since we'd be flying out there also.
We could fly into Madrid and skip Barcelona, but I think we're both more interested in Barcelona than Madrid if we're only going to go to one of them.

Steve,

To be honest, I'd probably suggest skipping Barcelona on this trip. Not because it isn't a really cool city to visit (it surely is, in fact, it's one of my favorite cities anywhere). It's just "the odd man out" of your trip: all the other stops are more geographically related, while Barcelona is far away -- might as well be Paris, London or Athens. It'll take you a while to get between Barcelona and anyplace else on your trip.

FWIW, I just got back from about 3 weeks in Spain & Portugal. We limited ourselves to Lisbon (and day trips nearby), and central/southern Spain (mostly Andalusia, plus Madrid and nearby). We liked Madrid a lot. Worth a day or two if only for the churros and hot chocolate pudding for breakfast....

Thanks David,
If we were to eliminate Barcelona, then we'd be flying into Madrid - leaving Madrid - and then coming back to Madrid to get to Portugal. Basically the trip would look the same as above except for substituting Madrid for Barcelona. The main difference being the transportation from Madrid to Sevilla could be via the AVE which doesn't connect Barcelona to Sevilla (or Granada).
The way we'd be doing Porto and Lisbon sort of controls things we do in Spain. I'd have to sit down with schedules, etc... to see if this substitution will really give us much more. There's also the night train from Barcelona that should (don't have the schedule in front of me) take us to Granada. That would substitute a night in a hotel and move us along that distance. I'd have to weight that vs a night in a hotel plus a low-cost airline flight.

Steve, have you looked in to the discount airlines? A quick check online reveals that there are cheap flights between Porto-Sevilla, Porto-Gerona (near Barcelona), and Porto-Madrid. There are also flights between Lisbon-Madrid and Barcelona-Lisbon. Might make a more reasonable connection/itinerary possible.

Getting between Portugal and Spain seems to be more complicated than one would expect.

Some folks suggest the "night train" between Madrid and Lisbon, but some folks (like me) do not sleep in things that move - just something to consider.

If you eliminate Barcelona you could fly into Madrid. Train to Granada, train or bus to Seville. From Seville fly to Porto (or Lisbon) and then either fly home from Lisbon or return to Madrid. You'd have more time in each city and could also see or stay in some smaller cities along the way (Salamanca, Toledo, Segovia)

Another option would be to spend your birthday in Lisbon--the Port Wine Institute is a great place to sip port.

Hope I haven't complicated things--just thinking of possibilities!

Thanks David and Sharon,
Apparently when going through the cheap airlines, I've missed those that fly Sevilla-Porto. That would make a lot of difference in our options - and would alleviate a trip that would be mostly for the purpose of quick(er) transportation to Porto.
And as Sharon mentions could open up the itinerary options regarding Madrid vs. Barcelona.
Which airline has the Sevilla-Porto route? I'm still not finding it.

Looks like Air Berlin goes between Sevilla (SVQ) and Porto (OPO). On their website I see fares listed for March 09 as low as 43 Euro :) No guarantees, of course - don't know if they fly that route every day and you probably know the potential gotchas of the pricing, but might be worth checking out for more options.

Before our recent trip, I did a fair bit of research on low cost airlines in Europe, and was constantly amazed at how many there were, and how many places they flew. Here are some websites that I found useful for tracking down the more obscure flights:

http://www.skyscanner.net/

http://www.whichbudget.com/

http://www.flylc.com/directall-en.asp

http://www.attitudetravel.com/lowcostairlines/europe/byregion/

Good luck.

Thanks David,
I was able to find Air Berlin, however it looks like there's a layover along the way. All the trips I searched for 3/26 were via Palma de Mallorca.
Rick also lists some web sites in his Spain 2009 book that consolidate the different low-cost carriers.
Since we carry on our luggage, we avoid some of the fees. But at this point, I don't see a direct route to Porto on any of the low-cost carriers. But the Air Berlin flight could be an option. After tax/fee/fuel surcharge it's 84 EUR/pp.