10 days in spain
 

We are landing in Barcelona on Sep 17 Morning and leaving from Madrid on Sep 27 morning.

We are in mid 30s and like to visit places with markets, nightlife, architecture, scenic beauty, beaches and some physical activities. The places we are not interested are historical places, museums etc

We are still in planning phase and not able to decide if we can visit northern Spain ( San Sebastian) from Barcelona and take a tour of southern Spain ( granada, seville, cordoba, salamanca ) from Madrid.

I know we cannot cover all the cities so want some help in narrowing down the cities

In September I'd head south not north for nice nice weather - can rain a lot in the north and be coolish but also could be nice.

I'd just settle on two bases - Barcelona and Madrid and do day trips from each but if you want to go to Seville it is just a 2 hour or so high-speed train trip from Madrid - so maybe 3 days each in Barcelona and Madrid and 3 days in Seville and say day trip to Cordoba - don't have time to do much more and then blast by high-speed train back to Madrid.

Assume you are going by train - cars are useless in those cities. Booking train tickets far ahead can save tons of money - www.renfe.com the Spanish Railways official site has all the various fares - early bird gets the worm but those tickets I believe are non-changeable non-refundable so be sure of your plans.

There is also I believe an overnight hotel train between Barcelona and Seville - go by night to Seville - spend 3 days or so there and end up in Madrid.

For lots of great info on Spanish trains check www.seat61.com - great info on discounted tickets; www.budgeteuropetravel.com and www.ricksteves.com.

Less if often more IME so do not try to do too much - but with Spain's AVE high-speed trains that go up to near 200 mph you can cover long distances quickly.

With only 10 days, I wouldn't try visiting Barcelona AND Madrid AND southern Spain -- too much!

With your interests, Barcelona, San Sebastian, and Madrid might make sense.

Salamanca is not in southern Spain, but it is beautiful. It won't have the beaches of San Sebastian, though....

I love the way some on this forum give weather forecasts as if they were experts in the subject. However not even the experts in the subject can get it right.
10 days does not give you long. time to get over jetlag time to arrive and settle in each location. etc will take about 3 days out of your time in Spain. So two cities BCn and Madrid. with maybe side trips if you feel you will get bored with either city.

<markets, nightlife, architecture, scenic beauty, beaches and some physical activities>

Barcelona, San Sebastian and Madrid would all tick almost all these boxes, and in very different ways.

Some examples:

architecture:
Barcelona: http://www.lonelyplanet.com/spain/ba...ure/la-pedrera
Madrid: http://www.spain.info/en/que-quieres..._austrias.html
San Sebastian: http://www.sansebastianturismo.com/e...e/belle-epoque

Scenic beauty:
San Sebastian: http://www.euskoguide.com/places-bas...stian-tourism/
Barcelona: http://www.tmb.cat/en/teleferic-de-montjuic
Madrid: https://11870.com/pro/restaurante-ventorrillo/media

Beaches:
San Sebastian: http://www.sansebastian.co.uk/beaches/
Barcelona: http://www.barcelona-tourist-guide.c...n-beaches.html

Physical activities:
San Sebastian: http://www.sansebastianturismo.com/en/to-do/sport-city
Barcelona: http://www.barcelonaturisme.com/wv3/...41/sports.html
Madrid: http://www.esmadrid.com/en/tourist-i...ue-del-retiro/

When it comes to markets and nightlife, any of these cities are hard to beat. Big cities Madrid and Barcelona are excellent, and lot smaller San Sebastian also have a great nightlife scene as well as some of the finest food markets around (the culinary capital of Spain if not all of Europe).
http://www.timeout.com/barcelona/tra...caffsaletraded

Zinemaldia (Sep 18-26, 2015), or San Sebastian International Film Festival, is one of the biggest of its kind in Europe alongside the Festival de Cannes and the Venice Mostra.
http://www.sansebastianfestival.com/
http://www.sansebastianturismo.com/en/

I love the way some on this forum give weather forecasts as if they were experts>

don't need to be a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing and likewise to say Seville will be toasty warm and Donostia may be cooler - but at that time of year probably just nice and Seville perhaps too hot.

Thank you for all your replies.

We also want to know if we have any direct trains from Barcelona to San Sebastian and San Sebastian to Madrid.

I tried looking for it online but could not find any.

Are there any overnight trains between these places? Would you recommend us travelling by train or flight between the same?

Both Barcelona to San Sebastian and San Sebastian to Madrid are some 5h 30 mins by train (renfe.com). Seems there are no night trains on these routes anymore.

Consider flying in from Barcelona and out to Madrid from Bilbao. Direct bus from the Bilbao airport to San Sebastian in 70 mins, 15€ (PESA bus).

Low cost Vueling flies Barcelona - Bilbao in 70 mins, seven times pr day from 40€.

Air Europe and Iberia fly Bilbao-Madrid in 65 mins, eleven times pr. day from 100€.

Thank you all

We have decided to explore 3 places

Barcelona ( we are landing there)

San Sebastian

Madrid ( Departing from there)

As we have almost 10 days , we plan to spend 3 days each in all places.

Please advice if we should change the number of days at any of the place based on our interests

Markets, nightlife, architecture, scenic beauty, beaches and some physical activities

Thanks again!

Sounds like an excellent plan, would give you relatively good time to take in three very! different Spanish cities that can offer more than most cities when it comes to both "markets, nightlife, architecture, scenic beauty, beaches [minus Madrid] and some physical activities".

Figure about three days of travel within the trip as well. I would choose two places to base out of and make some daytrips. I would visit Madrid and San Sebastian but I'm not real big on Modernisme.