Thanks for all of the great suggestions!

We have already booked our hotel for Barcelona - we're staying at "Hotel Call" which I actually stayed at a few years ago with some girlfriends. It's right off of las ramblas, a great location, it's clean and fine (but by no means "nice") and only 53 Euros a night. Which makes "fine" seem like "nice"!

Pavfec - thank you so much for your input, although you are making me a little bit nervous! haha I had posted our itinerary earlier on this thread, but I think that after so many revisions and so many posts it has gotten lost. I will re-post our itinerary for the second half of the trip. Please comment!!

Monday July 16 - fly from Barcelona to Jerez. Arrive at 4:30pm. Pick up rental car. Spend night at Parador in Arcos.

Tuesday July 17 - go on tour of sherry bodega in Jerez. Drive to Zahara, stop for lunch. Drive on to Ronda. Spend night at Hotel Enfrente Arte

Wednesday July 18 - Walk around Ronda for the morning. Drive to Granada. We have booked tickets for the Alhambra for that night. Staying at Hotel Guadalupe.

Thursday July 19 - we have booked morning tickets for the Alhambra. Staying again in Granada at Hotel Guadalupe.

Friday July 20 - drive in the morning to Crodoba and spend the day here. I am hoping to park the car at the train station and then lock our luggage there for the day. Is this possible?
In the evening, drive to Seville. Drop off rental car. Staying at the Hotel Alcantara in Seville.

Saturday July 21 - seville

Sunday July 22 - seville

Monday July 23 - leave seville at 7:30am and arrive in Lagos at noon. Spend day relaxing. Staying at the Albergaria Marina Rio

Tuesday July 24 - lagos. We booked a surfing lesson for half the day.

Wednesday July 25 - leave Lagos and take bus to Lisbon. there's a bus that leaves at 5:45am and arrives at 9:30am. I think we might do this and just sleep on the bus. spend day in Lisbon.

Thursday July 26 - Lisbon.

We have booked the hotel Turim Lisboa Hotel at 70 Euros a night for our 2 nights. We are now hearing that it is not very close to the sites, and so this hotel can be changed. We are open to suggestions or input about the hotel for lisbon...

Friday July 27 - catch flight from Lisbon to Canada at noon.

Thank you, thank you for all of your input and suggestions!! It is appreciated more than you know!

Woops, I forgot to say to Bubbao --

Spain is hot in the summer. I know it and everyone keeps reminding me!! it is my only time to travel aswell and so we decided to brave the heat and go in JULY!! we might be out of our minds, but at least it will make for some funny stories! Have a great time on your trip!

rsn, your itinerary looks fine. Not sure what I said that made you nervous!

I just have one question: when are you dropping off your car in Lagos? Is your hotel in town there? I ask because we found we needed a car in Lagos. Our apartment was further up from the city centre and we found it useful to drive into town at night. We also used it to go to a different beach one day on the west coast (the beaches in Lagos were very crowded).

And beware of driving in Granada - it's very easy to get lost! Street signs are at the beginning and end of the street, so you could find yourself at an intersection and not know where!

Pavfec - just the comments about your experience in Jerez! I also keep second guessing myself about the trip.. there are so many places to see and things to do, I just want to make sure I'm making the right decisions!

We haven't arranged a car in Lagos, and weren't sure if we needed one. Our hotel is right on the beach, and I think we thought that we could walk around everywhere. If you have a spare minute, do you think you could check out the location of our hotel? I have looked at the maps on the web, but I don't really know if it's a good location, other than being on the beach.

It has also been recommended that we try to go to Salema.

These are our "relaxation days" and so the less running around might be better so that we can unwind.

rsn, our bad experience in Jerez was mainly due to the hotel we stayed at. It was run down and service was terrible (there were hairs from certain body regions on the bathroom sink and I had to ask the desk 4 times to come and clean it!!). Anyway, don't fret. If you're staying at the Parador in Arcos, it'll be a lot nicer. We passed through Arcos and wish we could have stayed. It was gorgeous.

As for your hotel in Lagos, I see where it is and it seems close to the city centre, but I'm not completely familiar with that area (we didn't explore it). Have you looked on TripAdvisor for reviews? Perhaps someone has comments about its location.

rsn, regarding your drive from Arcos to Zahara, the northern route (via Villamartin) will be quicker than the southern one through El Bosque, mainly due to the slower section east of El Bosque. The roads are good but wind a lot -- white knuckles/sweaty palms when posted 40km/h.

We just got back a couple of weeks ago, and were also planning on going to Zahara but were waylaid in Ubrique (by the leather stores there!) so just went directly to Ronda.

We used the 2006 Michelin Spain & Portugal Atlas 1:400000 which was fine. Warning: some roads/highways have been renumbered, so they may not correspond to the map. This confused us a couple of times, as we weren't positive we were on the correct road.

Let me know if you have any specific questions, and I'll try to answer them.

hi, rsn,

i see that you're going to be at the hotel guadelupe in Granada. hope you like it as much as we did.

to get there, when you hit granada, keep to the ring-road and follow the signs all the way to the alhambra car park [you need to head for the south of the town and then turn back on yourselves up a big hill] - the hotel is right opposite the huge car park and the hotel will give you a card to get a discount on the parking fee which you pay on your way out.

there is a small lay-by on the road right outside the hotel but you can only stop there to unload, and it's not much closer than the car-park itself, if you can get a space near the road.

you can walk down into town in about 10 minutes- some interesting little shops on the way down where I bought a lovely leather bag for DD who was brother and house-sitting for us. to get back up, there is a bus from the main square that drop you right outside the alhambra entrance.

glad you got tickets for day and night visits- I'm sure you won't be disappointed.

have a wonderful time,

regards, ann

Hi there, just wondering which company you're using for ground transportation in Portugal (Bus). I found the EVA bus company, but their website is not very user friendly. Need bus from Lisbon to Faro, Faro to Albufeira and Albufeira to Seville.
Also any suggestions on hotels in Seville (After a hard time I found decent reasonable hotels in the other cities - Madrid, Barcelona, etc)
any info would be much appreciated.

try this one
http://www.rede-expressos.pt/

Eva is the other largest transportation company in Portugal.

Hi everyone! Sorry it has taken me a while to respond to all of the new posts, but it has been very busy here!!

Firstly, Thank you so much for all the info! I leave in less than 3 weeks and i am so excited!!

Secondly, we are making a minor change - we are going to spend 1 day less in Seville and go to Lagos a bit earlier. People have been telling us that Seville is particularly hot and so we are thinking it might be nice to spend some extra beach time instead.

Carlos - now it might be possible to go to Cabo Sao Vicente on our way to Lisbon.. but might still leave that part open and see how we feel once we are there.

matador2 - we are staying at hotel alcantara in seville which got good reviews on tripadvisor and is located right beside the cathedral. it's also not so expensive. In barcelona, we are staying at "hotel call" which is in a great location right off of las ramblas. For 55 EUR a night, you are getting what you pay for, but I stayed there a few years ago and found it good enough to go back to. I found that the location and price made it worth it.

Ok you two twenty-something lovebirds...
Here's the deal. You are going to have an amazing time!! In Barcelona you should definitely spend a day doing the wine thing. If you want, there is a catalunya wine expert that is a member of our community site at land-of-guiris.com. I think his name is ryanopaz on the site. We all went down to the Priorat, which is a muy famoso area. Penedes is also known for producing consistent quality. For places to taste these delicious wines, visit the Shortlist on www.bcnweek.com. You can visit that site for other great events, articles, etc. But I would recommend a beach day down in Sitges. It's worth it. Well worth it.
Remember www.bcnweek.com

thanks so much for your suggestions - we will definitely see how much time we have in Barcelona and will hopefully make it to Sitges if we have time.

A FEW UPDATES: we have taken out a day in Seville, and we are now looking into renting a car in Lagos and taking a drive to Sagres. then, the following day, we will leave Lagos and drive up to Lisbon where we now have 3 full days.

We were thinking of doing a day trip to Sintra from Lisbon as we cannot find any reasonable accomodation in Sintra.

Any suggestions? THANK YOU!

Yes, try to stop by in Evora on your way to Lisbon. Evora is beautiful! Have a great time and hopefully you can make it to Salema as well.

Where are you staying in Lisbon?

Carlos - Hi! I was hoping you would hear from you! We are definitely going to go to Salema from Lagos now that we have decided to rent a car in Portugal for a few days. On the drive to Lisbon I think we will try to stop in Evora but we won't have much time.

If we spend a day to drive to Lisbon and see Evora, then that only leaves us 1 day to go to Sintra and 1 day to see Lisbon (although we will have all 3 nights in Lisbon).

We are staying at the Turim Lisboa hotel. It is a little out of the way, but it got great reviews on tripadvisor and the price is right, especially now that we are renting a car twice.

I'm jealous.....I love Portugal and the people are friendly. Don't forget to go to Belem and try Pasteis de Belem! they are a treat!

aha BCN week is extremely well informed. and funny.

yosoyyo - thanks for the suggestions! The link that you posted for ryanopaz (wine expert) isn't working. I am trying to arrange a wine tour near Barcelona and I was hoping that you could sen me some additional info. Thanks!

Well, I'm leaving tomorrow for my trip and I just wanted to thank everyone who helped me plan it all out! I could not have done it without your support and suggestions.

Thank you so much!!

I will try to take good notes to share when I get back at the end of the month.

Take care

We've done a lot of driving tours in southern spain and have visited a few other spots.

http://stumblebumstravels.blogspot.c...ch/label/SPAIN

Hi RSN! are you back yet? how was your trip? do you have any pics or travel report? please share your highlights!

C