I would skip Marbella in Andalucia - it is just a resort town. Much better to spend more time in beautiful Malaga, where are so many interesting sights to enjoy (Malaga Cathedral, the Alcazaba, Castello de Gibralfaro, vibrant market, Picasso Museum, and much more). You obviously have limited time, but there are places not to miss in Andalucia: the Alhambra in Granada (prebook your tickets!), Cordoba Mezquita... Seville requires at least two full days (we had four), Ronda for the view of El Tajo Gorge (be ready for insane crowds in Ronda!)

in Portugal, I would not stay overnight in rundown Coimbra and just stop over to visit one of the oldest universities in Europe, Coimbra University, with its stunning architecture and sweeping views from the top of the hill.

I would do day trips to Evora and Sintra from Lisbon. If you need to park your car, then you might want to base in Cascais and do day trips to Lisbon, Belem, which is part of Lisbon, Sintra (do not drive to and in Sintra!), and Evora, if time permits.

On the way from Porto to Lisbon, I would include gorgeous monasteries of Batalha and Alcobaça. Cannot comment on Nazare - we decided to skip it.

My own and very biased opinion: Portugal is beautiful, but Spain in general and Andalucia in particular are STUNNING. We have been to Spain four times, with three trips to Andalucia, and are seriously looking forward for more to come.

You can easily do a day trip to Cordoba and Ronda from Seville, but if you have time, do try to stay overnight in both and enjoy these towns after crazy crowds leave in their huge tourist buses😊.

We haven’t been to Valencia yet, but are planning to visit in the future.

Toledo is fabulous, but I am afraid you would not have any time left for it. If you go to Madrid at some point, Toledo, Segovia, Avila, Salamanca and El Escorial are easy to reach on a train from Madrid - all of them have unique and captivating sights to enjoy.

i agree with Karen. I cannot comment on Portugal as I’m just planning our first visit there. But with two counties in 14 days, you need to prioritize what to put in and what to skip. We did two separate trips to Madrid + Barcellona and Andalusia + Madrid for 9nights and 8 full days on the ground. The reason for the two trips was that we couldn’t go for anything longer that 9 nights and in such short period, you can’t do Madrid, Barcelona, and the south properly. And even with two different trips I had to give up on quite a few places during those trips.

What i I normally do, since we usually charter minibuses, I put all the places in google maps just to see how long it takes between all of the ones I’m considering. Once you do that , you then start adding the actual time it would take at each place, plus lunches, dinners etc. at this time, I often see how ambitious my plan is and that i really need to be ruthless and cut it down a lot. For example, I try to keep things and places that are unique. For example, you won’t see anywhere else anything like Alhambra or Ronda with its amaing setting or Gaudi’s creations. But cathedrals and churches might start all look quite similar after a few. So try to pick things and places that give you variety.

We always drive in Spain, but not in big cities. Driving in Andalucia is one of the most memorable things of our trips... we stoped at the places not discovered by mass tourism yet and enjoyed them so much. The road from Ronda to Malaga is stunningly gorgeous as well as the road from Malaga to lovely Antequera. Just a couple of examples.

I agree with Myriam - if you want to drive, just do it😊.

And if you want to combine Portugal and Spain, it is OK too. We had done it, but it was our third trip to Spain and the fourth one has happened in the same year (in 2017).