Trip Report – Best of Spain – March/April 2025
Finally posting another trip report. We really enjoyed this tour. The weather was very good – not hot and just a couple days of rain. I’m also listing what we did during our free time in case this helps anyone who is taking the tour next year. I put * next to restaurants or sights that I reserved in advance. I made more reservations in advance than I usually do, but had some really nice meals. People seemed to have found my ratings helpful on other reports, so including them again… 1-10 – very subjective, based just on how much we enjoyed them.
Air France flight over (10), BARCELONA: arrived 2 days before tour, stayed at Hotel Catalonia d’Angel, balcony room (8). Pre-tour day 1: Arrived in the afternoon, then walked through La Boqueria Market and down to waterfront to try to stay awake (7), had a quick tapas dinner at El Drac de Sant Jordi (5). Pre-tour day 2: started with the best hotel breakfast buffet (10), followed Rick Steves’ Audio Barcelona City Walk (8), toured the Cathedral (8), walked through Santa Caterina Market (8), had a nice lunch next door at Cuines Santa Caterina (9), toured the very beautiful *Palau de Musica (10), toured the *Picasso Museum (6), had a very nice dinner at *Restaurante La Palmara (9) - friendly staff and owner. Tour Day 1: Before the tour started… we toured *Palau Guell (8), took the funicular to Montjuic, walked to the Catalan Museum of Art (7), had lunch inside the museum at Oleum (9) – beautiful views of the city, rode the cable car to the castle (8) – more great views, then ubered back to our hotel. The tour started at 5:00 with cava in the lobby and a very nice group of people. Had dinner with the group at Onofre (8) – lots of tapas. Tour Day 2: We had free time in the morning: walked to *La Pedrera and toured (9), had lunch at *La Rita (8), then met our group for a tour of the amazingly beautiful La Sagrada Familia (10). After touring the cathedral, we had more free time, so took a taxi to *Parc Guell for a little rainy walk through the park (8). I think the rest of the group may have walked back to the hotel together. Dinner on our own at *Vinateriade Call, cozy place with more tapas (8). Tour Day 3: We took a bus to the train station, then a had three hour train ride to Madrid. Once we arrived MADRID, we toured the Prado Museum (8), had a short overview of the city in the bus, walked a little bit to our hotel – Hotel Moderna (7), had a little time on our own, met up with the group in the evening for a short neighborhood orientation, and a group dinner at Prada a Tope (8). Tour Day 4: We started the day with a long walking tour of historic Madrid (7), then toured the Royal Palace. For our free time, we had a nice lunch at Las Nubes in the Corte Englais (9), and walked to and through Retiro Park (8). We met back with our group for a wine tasting at Vide Vinoteca (8) and tasted 3 wines with a cheese and meat board. Tour Day 5: We started with a bus ride to SEGOVIA and once there had a great tour of the aqueduct and the Alcazar with Javier (9), then a had a wonderful group sucling pig lunch at Jose Maria (10). Back in Madrid we had a nice, light dinner at *Taberna La Carmencita (9) on our own. Tour Day 6: Drove to TOLEDO after breakfast, ascended on the escalators, then had a walking tour (8) through Toledo, including the cathedral and the Jewish synagogue. We checked into our hotel – San Juan De Los Reyes (9) – a new hotel for the tour groups – nice with pretty views. Free time: we had a delicious lunch at the hotel’s beautiful restaurant – la fabricadeharinos (10), then toured the Army Museum and shopped, had drinks at the rooftop bar at the Carlos V Hotel (10) – beautiful views!, and ended the day with dinner at *La Orza (10). Tour Day 7: Took a scenic walk down to the bus, had a short bus ride then a local tour guide took us to a saffron shop and to the windmills (8).