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-   -   4 weeks 4 cities in Spain (https://www.fodors.com/community/europe/4-weeks-4-cities-in-spain-1194001/)

GLDeven Jan 26th, 2017 08:04 PM

4 weeks 4 cities in Spain
 
We are a newly retired couple & want to spend 4 weeks travelling in Spain in April as 1st time visitors
Ideally we would stay in Airbnb type apartments in each city and do day trips from each location. We prefer to use public transport betwen cities and for excursions but do not have a problemn renting a car for day trips.
Ideally we would like to see Madrid, Basque Country and maybe Sevilla.
We plan to end up in Barcelona so we can go to Italy by train and do the same thing there
Do you have any suggestions for the best places to spend a week at at a time?
Any tips for best area to stay in each city?
Any tips for getting between cities ?
Any tips inngeneral
Best day trips from each place?
Any insight you can provide will be appreciated

kja Jan 26th, 2017 10:14 PM

IMO, Madrid would be a great choice for at least 1 week, maybe longer depending on your interests. Possible day trips include Toledo, Salamanca (although I think each of them actually merits 2 nights), Segovia, Avila, etc.

Sevilla would also be a great choice in my opinion. I would urge you to include Cordoba as a day trip, if not more. IMO, Granada is unmissable, but really requires 2 nights -- it isn't a great day trip destination. Personally, I would want at least 10 days in Andalusia, but again, not from a single base.

Barcelona would be another wonderful choice. Plenty to see in the city itself, with day trip options to Montserrat, Girona, Figueres, Tossa de Mar, Tarragona, etc.

The "obvious" choice for Basque country would be San Sebastian / Donostia, with lots of options for day trips, but it wouldn't be my first choice for this trip, at least in part because the weather there in April can be a bit on the cold and rainy side.

Sounds to me like you would benefit enormously from a few good guide books, perhaps including the <i>Michelin Green Guide</i> (even if you are not driving) and the <i>Rough Guide</i> -- and you might consult some others at a local library or bookstore to see which meet your needs best.

Train travel in Spain is excellent, particularly along the high-speed lines, and IME, buses are comfortable, too. Check rome2rio.com for a preliminary sense of your transportation options.

Hope that helps!

kimhe Jan 27th, 2017 01:57 AM

Barcelona, Madrid, San Sebastián and Sevilla would give you four fabulous and VERY different cities, a great taste of a highly diverse country. Could easily be my first choice of four cities after thirty years of intensive traveling in the coutry. Been in all these cities many times in later years, and these are all good intros to what to expect:

Medieval and modernistic Barcelona: http://www.barcelonaturisme.com/wv3/...districts.html
Majestic Madrid: http://www.esmadrid.com/en
Food heaven and Belle Epoque San Sebastián, arguably the most beautiful city in the country: http://www.euskoguide.com/places-bas...stian-tourism/
Sevilla, the undisputed queen of the cities in the South: http://www.exploreseville.com/

kimhe Jan 27th, 2017 03:13 AM

Barcelona, Madrid and Sevilla are connected through the excellent high speed AVE Train. For San Sebastián, take a low cost flight from any of the above to Bilbao (1-1,5 hour and some 50€, frequent departures), and then direct bus to San Sebastián from the Bilbao airport in 70 mins.

Suggested day trips:

From Madrid:
Obviously Segovia and Toledo, but also
Escorial: http://www.sanlorenzoturismo.org/en
and Alcalá de Henares: http://www.esmadrid.com/en/trips-alcala-henares

From San Sebastián:
the old inland capital Tolosa: http://www.euskoguide.com/places-bas...olosa-tourism/
Small Getaria with sensatiomnal seafood and the Txakoli wine: http://www.euskoguide.com/places-bas...taria-tourism/
Vibrant Bilbao with the famous museums and the best atmosphere: http://www.euskoguide.com/places-bas...ilbao-tourism/

From Sevilla:
Roman Itálica: http://www.andalucia.com/cities/seville/italica.htm
History and beauty in Carmona: http://www.andalucia.com/province/se...rmona/home.htm

From Barcelona:
Obviously Montserrat.
Do day-trips within the city!
Montjuic with the castle, the museums, the Olympic sport arenas, the theaters, the greens and the fabulois views of both the city and the sea: https://barcelonando.com/montjuic-olympic-ring
Gracia, a village within the city: https://www.barcelona-tourist-guide....ia-barrio.html

dwdvagamundo Jan 27th, 2017 06:39 AM

Concur with Kimhe. Those would give you a good range of places together with enough to do--if you include day trips-to spend a week in each.

Buen viaje!

Robert2016 Jan 27th, 2017 06:45 AM

Airbnbs and public transportation? I take it you are comfortable, if not fluent, in Spanish and Italian and of then course there is Euskara and Catalan to consider.

GLDeven Jan 27th, 2017 10:44 AM

Thanks for a ton of information and guidance. It seems that I may have to allocate our nights a bit more diversely given the excellent advice.
I have purchased a guidebook & currently digesting it
We want this trip to be relaxing and not a rushed dash from point to point. Enjoy the way of life and the pace
I am somewhat comfortable with Spanish though more Latin American than purely European.
Italian, Catalan & Euskara are non starters, but hopefully phrase books and Google with suffice

IMDonehere Jan 27th, 2017 10:48 AM

The Italians are very forgiving when you attempt to speak their language. And everyone in Catalunya speaks Castilian.

Also Spanish trains are excellent and check to see where the AVE (high speed trains) run. There are also a bunch of cheap-o airlines including Ryan, Easyjet and Vueling

PalenQ Jan 27th, 2017 11:46 AM

We prefer to use public transport between cities and for excursions but do not have a problem renting a car for day trips.>

For train info and tips - like on discounted tickets - check www.renfe.com - official site of Spanish Railways-book your own online - www.seat61.com - great tips using renfe.com or alternative sources; www.budgeteuropetravel.com and www.ricksteves.com.

Madrid and Seville both make great bases - buses and trains go everywhere you want for a day trip - Toledo, Avila, Segovia for Madrid are tops and Jerez de la Frontera (sherry tours and Andalusian horses practicing) and Cordoba excellent ones from Seville.

Barcelona makes an obvious good other base.

kja Jan 27th, 2017 04:06 PM

I can't imagine that you would NEED to know Euskara or Catalan for public transportation. Even a tiny bit of Spanish would, IME, be more than adequate, particularly if supplemented by a good phrase book or two. Even many years ago, I had no trouble in central or southern Spain with only a few words of Spanish. More recently, I had no trouble in Basque Country or Catalunya with a bit more Castilian.

sundriedtopepo Jan 27th, 2017 04:33 PM

I'm with kja, no need to know Spanish, or Euskara or Catalan.

I also agree with her that San Sebastian might not be the most enjoyable at that time of year, and it is going a fair bit out of the way when there is so much to see in southern Spain. If you are going to Seville, why not go to Granada/Malaga for a smaller city?

You would want to fly into Bilbao (San Sebastian) and probably want to fly out to Barcelona, or take a train or drive, another 5 to 6 hours...to me, it's the outlier.

nanael Jan 27th, 2017 06:29 PM

My husband and I did 3 wonderful months last year (2 weeks of it were in Portugal). kimhe and kja were invaluable resources in my planning (thank you again!) as were a couple others who answered my questions during my year of planning. I would only suggest you concentrate on less areas - every region is so diverse!
Ours was also a "retirement trip" and we were fortunate to have the time to just savor every place we went. Granada, Sevilla (day trip to Jerez), Cordoba - 4-5 days each. Madrid we also stayed for 5 days. We did a circle around Madrid: Segovia, Salamanca, Avila, Toledo, Cuenca - before heading for Barcelona and then up the coast for a few days (our daughter and grandson joined us for 2 weeks in Catalunya). We then headed to the Pyrenees, the Basque area, Picos de Europa ...
I probably would have stayed a week or two longer if we had not been limited by the Schengen 90-day rule.
We stayed mostly in B & Bs, several apartments and a few hotels (shorter stays).
A grasp of "Latin American" Spanish will be just fine wherever you go. Everywhere we went the people were lovely!
We did most of our traveling by car -picked one up in 4 different places as we never wanted to have one in the cities proper. It was very easy for us with the help of Google Maps and my smart phone (which btw WAS stolen out of my cross body bag in the subway in Barcelona - oh well).
We started in late April and returned home in July - planned it around the weather!
But just remember: any way you do it, you will love Spain, its people and the food!

kja Jan 27th, 2017 06:37 PM

@ nanael: Thank so much for your kind words! :-) I would never have thought I would merit mention in the same sentence that credits kimhe's generous contributions. I am honored, and so glad that your found my input helpful.

nanael Jan 27th, 2017 08:21 PM

kja - we were really glad we took note of your experiences with the wimpy car!

kja Jan 27th, 2017 08:40 PM

@ nanael: If you learned from me to avoid a wimpy Opel Corsa, then I know I did, truly, provide invaluable input! ;-)

PalenQ Jan 28th, 2017 01:39 PM

We plan to end up in Barcelona so we can go to Italy by train and do the same thing there>

a long long LONG train ride if you want to go straight thru- natural places to break it up would be the Avignon/Arles area -the heart of tourist Provence with so much neat stuff in a compact area; and the French Riviera.

Or take the overnight and most of the day ferry between Barcelona and Livorno (I think)

or if none of those fly.

Also check out the Spain-Italy railpass if taking several longer trains in those countries or the Eurail Select Saverpass if also railing in France.

cheska15 Jan 28th, 2017 09:26 PM

We are doing a similar trip to you at the same time. I'm calling the Spain trip a 'teaser' as we are seeing the major places ( probably to everyone's horror) and I'm sure will return. We land in Paris stay 4 days and the catching the train to Barcelona for four nights, then Madrid 7 nights, Córdoba 3 nights,Seville 7 nights and Granada for 7 nights. Barcelona, Madrid, and Córdoba are hotels as we are meeting people then the rest in apartments. Have booked our apartments with Veo Apartments and booking.com for hotels.

All travel will be done by train/bus and the trip from Paris to Barcelona has been booked and paid for with loco2. I found this easier than using RENFE and by getting a booking alert we were able to get the 59 euro fare per person. I am currently waiting for the alert for the train fro. Barcelona to Madrid to open (February) and that will be the last booking we will do in advance.

We then will fly from Madrid to Milan as compared with train it did work out cheaper to fly. Then Italy for 59 days.
I hope you enjoy your trip. I'm so excited and have started the countdown.

frencharmoire Jan 28th, 2017 11:20 PM

Sounds like a great trip. There really isn't any time of the year you can go to San Sebastian and be guaranteed sunny skies and dry weather, so as long as you are both willing to take the gamble on getting rainstorms, I would keep it in the mix. My approach might be to plan for some energetic sightseeing before and after San Sebastian, then if you end up spending some long hours in San Sebastian reading indoors while it rains outside, you'll feel grateful for the downtime. Just pack an umbrella so you can go bar hopping for pintxos in the evening.

I not only don't speak any Euskara, I don't even know how to pronounce the word Euskara. I'm not proud of it, but I never found it an obstacle to enjoying the Basque areas, and no one seemed to expect me to speak it. (I do know all the typical Spanish courtesy words, and can handle rudimentary stuff, like "where is" and "how much" and that was welcomed. Same in Catalan areas.)

Taking the train from Barcelona to Italy is not rewarding unless you plan some high-value stop-offs like Marseilles or Nice or maybe some scenic villages (they are few and far between). There are many easy plane flights from Barcelona to various points in Italy.

kimhe Jan 29th, 2017 04:40 AM

No need to know Basque/euskera in the Basque Country, relatively few speak it, at least in the cities, and everybody speak Spanish (or castellano as they call it up here).

San Sebastián is beautiful in rain, especially if it's hard and comes almost out of the blue. People flock into the bars and under the arcades, and the Belle Epoque city never looks prettier.

Weather statistics for San Sebastián in April says temperatures in the 60's, about 6 hours sun pr. day and rainfall every second day. Very normal with some hours sun and then some heavy rain showers in the evening. http://www.wetteronline.de/klima-tem.../san-sebastian

ssander Jan 29th, 2017 06:19 AM

Have you visited

http://www.madridman.com

It's one of the best sources for information about Madrid as well as about other places in Spain.

ssander


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