3 Must See Cities in Spain
 

My husband and I (27 and 28 years old) will be going to Spain over the Easter 2016 holiday. We will be there for 10 days and would love to do 3 cities in the 10 day time span. I think it would be the most sensible to fly home to Chicago out of Barcelona or Madrid since those are the two biggest airports. Any recommendations about where to go in sequence without losing too much time on traveling and for how many days?

Any must-see attractions would be greatly helpful as well! Thanks!

Easter is a BIG holiday in Spain with BIG prices. I'd fly into Madrid, take the train to Seville to see Semana Santa processions, then go on to Cordoba and Granada, and return to Madrid to fly out.

You post is has contradictions.
You want to see 3 cities in just 10 days and at the same time you want to loose much time to travelling.
My advise is make just 1 or 2 locations. If the later think about taking an open jaw.
For must sees read through this forum or take a peek at the Spanish tourist website.
http://www.spain.info/
Once you have some sort of idea of what you'd like to see please post back with your proposed itinerary.

As Bedar says, Holy Week is BIG. Prices will raise and availability will plummet.

Are your 10 including travel days? If so, you are down to 8 days.

2 cities would be perfect, but my choices would be:

Option 1- Madrid 5n, Sevilla 3n and Granada 2n for good museums and a flavor of the south.

Option 2 - Madrid 4n, Sevilla or Granada and Barcelona 4n (fly open jaw)

Option 3 - Barcelona 5n, Bilbao 3n and San Sebastian 2n (not sure about connections on this one) appealing if you are a foodie or a fan of contemporary art.

Option 4 - Barcelona and Madrid, if you run out things to do you can add daytrips from both cities (Avila, Segovia, Cordoba / Montserrat, Tarragona, Girona).

It's impossible to select only three "must see" places out of a whole country. With only ten days, maybe less on the ground, stay with an open jaw ticket into either Madrid or Barcelona and out of the other. You 'll have an enormous amount of things to do in the two cities without a third. Don't forget that transferring from one place to another costs time, so one transfer via the train will free up your schedule a bit.

Madrid, Barcelona and a day trip to Girona from Barcelona and to Toledo from Madrid. I think is a good plan if you don´t want losing too much time on traveling.

Some people said going to Andalucia to see processions, I think is hard to understand and my experience said that most of tourist just like to see one procession and that´s enough.

Nazarenos in easter, nothing to do with kkk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diCRj4H_VrY

In Seville is so crowdy during semana santa that many times major incidents happens
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7Y7wInno1I

I don't think it's impossible to pick only a few cities to see in a country, I do it every time I take a vacation.

If you aren't interested in the Semana Santa festivities
in Seville and just picked that time for vacation convenience, I'd pick Madrid and Barcelona, for that reason. Seville is very crowded and very expensive during HOly Week, I know, as I've been there. Two cities is enough for 10 days as you can visit others during day trips (like Toledo from Madrid). The problem is the 3 cities you picked are in a triangle so it's not easy to get between them. So it won't easily work in 10 days. But if you had to, I'd fly into Seville, train to Madrid, train to Barcelona and then fly out of BCN.

Because flights aren't as easy to/from Seville as Madrid or BCN. So it's best to get that out of the way in the beginning. I know because I flew there last Fall. I had to fly frm the US to either Brussels, and then fly to Spain from there. And I think there was about a 4 hour layover wherever I was. YOu don't want to do that going home, most likely. The only way I could get a 1 stop flight to Seville from where I live in the US was to transfer either at Brussels OR Frankfurt (Lufthansa). And you are backtracking some by doing that, of course.

For a first time trip to Spain I still say Madrid, Seville and Granada is the best introduction. Easter processions are intense in Sevilla but it will be an unforgettable experience, quite moving even if you're not Catholic.