So my partner and I have booked our tix for next May (as a precursor to a week-long trip with the folks in Paris) into Barcelona from LAX. We've got about 6 full days on the ground after our first night in Barcelona before we must fly back to Paris on the 7th day.

I'm having a hard time narrowing down where the 2nd destination should be. We like to move around a lot, so I'm not worried so much about the '2 places in 6 days' thing. What I am worried about is staying in one place for too long actually.

Given that we'll be in a large city (Paris) for an entire week at the tail-end, I wanted to spend the first few days in Barcelona and then get somewhere blatantly different...so, at first, we thought we would traverse around Spain (maybe hit up Seville, Granada, etc.) then we started thinking of going straight up to Cote d'Azur or Aix-en-Provence for the remaining 3 days.

But lately, I have this itch to go to Morocco. We're so close to it already being in Spain and I think it's the difference we're looking for in our upcoming trip. I've been a bit weary, admittedly, about going back to Europe after 3 years straight of traveling to Asia. That culture and experience has captivated me so..and I've been to Europe many, many times (mostly England, Germany, France and the Netherlands) and feel like, even though I admire the beauty of a lot of destinations there, it's all very similar. Or at least what I've experienced. So I'm really trying to find a stark contrast (albeit a great one) to 'mainstream' Europe.

That's why Morocco seemed more of an adventure. A lot of culture to soak in (and perhaps culture shock) ...so the thought was maybe fly to Marrakesh from Barcelona and spend 3 days there. Our folks have been to Morocco and they swear by Fez over anywhere else, but I don't know if, logistically, that's as doable in our timeframe or not.

Thoughts/ideas?

topping this

Since this is the Europe board, you may not get a lot of cheerleaders for Morocco. Sounds like a wonderful adventure to me. But I think you need another board. (I've never been.)

Morocco is definitely dramatically different from Europe, and you're right - it's right there over the Med - so I say, go for it (if you can afford it - last time I flew from Marseille to Marrakesh, it cost as much as the airfare to Europe from the US and back).

Just don't do the daytrip to Tangier thing. If you're going to do it, go to Fez or Marrakesh. Three days is enough to get a good taste of Morocco (though the longer, the better, of course).

Ryanair has cheap flights to Marrakech from Girona airport.