13 days in Spain and Portugal
 

I am traveling to Spain to celebrate my 40th, arriving May 4 and leaving- May 17th. There will be two of us traveling and have never been to Europe. Barcelona, Madrid and Lisbon are definitely on the list of places to visit. We would also like to hit up some beach ares and smaller towns to experience the local culture. Our plan is to rent a car and drive to each location. We will stay in Air BnBs and fly into either Madrid or Barcelona.

Any suggestions on smaller type towns/beaches? And how long to stay in each city? We aren't real big on doing the touristy type things. More walking around, shopping, eating and drinking :-) Also, any neat festivals happening that time of year? Any advice to fit in all the good spots in the short amount of time we have would be appreciated.

Don't drive between madrid and Barcelona or to Lisbon. There is a fast train, only a couple of hours between Barcelona and Madrid. The drive between is long and fairly boring. Fly from Spain to Lisbon. Driving would eat up a lot of time.

With those three cities, you have little time for much else.

"Good spots" depend on your personal interests. My good spots may be your bad spots. Do you want ancient, walled cities like Toledo, major architectural sights like the Alhambra, Sagrada Familia and Toledo Cathedral, high end shopping, street food, up scale restaurants? Suggest more research to find places that fit your interests.

Seville? Cordoba?

There is a beach near Barcelona, but none near Madrid. There are nice beaches in the South and on the Algarve.

This trip sounds very rushed to me. I recommend that you get some good guidebooks (or spend some time with a few in your local library), identify the things you most want to see in each location, note their opening/closing times, and mark them on a calendar. Then pencil in your transportation, add some time on either side (for getting to/from the train/bus station or whatever, checking in/out, packing/unpacking, getting oriented, etc.). Then see how things fit together. Good luck!

Why too many places. What do you want to see in Madrid, Barcelona, and Lisbon?

You will lose between 1/2 and full day moving from city to city.

May is serious festival time in Spain.

For example, Madrid celebrates the city's patron saint San Isidro in the middle of the month, the major Madrid festival of the year: http://www.spain.info/en/reportajes/...en_madrid.html

And yoy have the famous patio festival in Cordoba, 1h 40 mins from Madrid with the high speed AVE Train. Food, drink, music, dance, song and patios:
http://www.andalucia.com/cities/cordoba/patios.htm
http://www.spain-holiday.com/Cordoba...-de-los-patios
In NYT: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/06/gr...e-cordoba.html

Thanks for the responses. We don't want to feel rushed at all so it might make sense to take a train or fly to most cities or drop one and spent a few days or driving down the coast.

We definitely want to spent at least 4 days in Barcelona and Lisbon. Might just skip Madrid this time around.

Vueling flys from Barcelona to Lisbon and easyJet from Madrid to Lisbon.
Cheap.

I can't speak for Spain, but we stayed in Obidos in Portugal which is a lovely small town out of time, and only twenty minutes drive from the coast. We spent a day wandering around a small coastal town and driving up the coast a bit and it was beautiful.