We are planning a trip with another couple to these areas and the trip keeps growing! I am listing our tentative itinerary and would welcome any comments. Can we cover this much territory?
We are going from May 2- May 22, 2006. Will it be all right at that time to go without reservations so we can stay longer in a place when we choose to and then skip some other places farther on? Or are reservations imperative in order to have a decent place to stay?
May 2- arrive Marseille, drive to Collioure
overnight Collioure.
May 3 Carcassone (Montmorency or Hotel des Ramparts
May 4 Lourdes
May 5-7 Sarlat (La Lanterne) or Beynac (Hotel du Chateau) Visits to Caves, Rocamadur, St Circ La Popie...(Or we could stay in St Circ on the 5th and then continue on to Sarlat/ Beynac for the 6-7)
May 7 (Sat) Market in Sarlat. Drive to St. Emillion
May 8 St Emillion - visit vineyards
May 9-11 Basque Region-St Jean de Luz, Hondarribia, San Sebastian, Bilbao (Pick one place as a base or stay one night in each of 3?)
May 12 Drive to Santiago de la Compostela (Sights to see along the way?)
May 13 Santiago de la Compostela
May 14 Drive to Lisbon (Stop in Porto)
May 15 Lisbon
May 16-18 Seville (Andaluccia, Malaga, Granada, Cordoba???? How much can we see in these 2 1/2 days?
May 18 night- leave car in Seville and fly to Barcelona
May 19-21 Barcelona
May 22 depart US

Thanks for reviewing all of this an any advice you can offer!

I'm knackered just reading this. This is all driving?

I think you're seriously underestimating the time required to cover this territory. Just thinking about Lisbon traffic, Portuguese drivers (a personal issue with me) and entering Seville after motoring from Lisbon... oy. What to do with your 2.5 days in Andalusia? Hospital sounds good to me.

IMO you should apply serious surgery to this itinerary. Whack out Portugal, or skip the northern tier (Basque country - Santiago etc.) Or focus on the southwest of France and Catalunya - Perpignan, Barcelona, the Pyrenees, etc. Otherwise you'll be experiencing everything through a car window and/or in a state of exhaustion. Just IMO.

That is a lot of driving. I agree forget Portugal completely for this trip. I'm not being flippant when i say that I hope you know this other couple really well and I hope that they have a keen sense of humor.
Have fun,
pb

Your itinerary attempts to cover far too much and you will waste lots of precious time looking for hotels. I agree you need to cut it way down. Do you know how long the drive is from Santiago to Lisbon, for example?

Thank you all for your comments. Gardyloo, I really appreciate your sense of humor and couldn't stop laughing after I read your suggestion of a hospital stay. And I will definitely consider what all of you have said about cutting out Portugal and trying to do too much. That is exactly why I posted. Pete, we do know our friends very well and have travelled with them extensively, sometimes even shared a room on occaision (and a ferry cabin), and we have many humorous memories and stories to tell. Ekscrunchy, I thought I had checked driving times fairly well, but maybe I'm way off. For the itinerary leading up to Santiago, Michelin Maps driving times are all 2-3 hours per day. From Bilbao to Santiago they say 7 hours, from Santiago to Lisbon-5.75 hours and from Lisbon to Seville 5 hours. Since we were planning 2 nights in each place and 3 in Seville I thought that would be okay. Have I totally underestimated the time? We're definitely willing to revise. We've already been to Madrid so had ruled that out. Would you suggest more time in the Seville area ? Can we use Seville as a home base and see Granada, Coroba, Malaga, Arcos etc. or do we need to spend nights in those places? Really appreciate everyone's help on this!

A word about reservations. I wouldn't say they are "imperative" but it does save you spending precious vacation time looking for a place to sleep -practically every single day on your schedule!

I would suggest making a time table of this itinerary with realistic driving times, plus add in hours for checking out of your last hotel and looking for a new one in the new place. Basically 1/2 of most days you will use up in transition one place to the next.

caramellan,
WOW! I'm with the others here. Knackered doesn't begin to do justice to this. For instance, you arrive in Marseille on May 2nd and drive to Collioure for one night--that's the day you arrive, and then drive 386 km? That's a long drive, especially just after you arrive. But you barely get to close your eyes there, and you're off and running another 200+ km to Carcassonne. There's no time to enjoy Collioure and relax there at all. And off and running to Lourdes -- I think you should skip that on this itinerary and put more time around Sarlat. Because by the time you get to Sarlat (another several hundred km), you've got one full day to enjoy a region that you could spend a week in easily. The Dordogne is a region that has many small roads, and you'll be amazed at how long it takes to get anywhere. And truthfully, you won't want to rush from place to place-- it's the kind of place you should meander in. I can't speak about the other regions, but I really recommend you do a major hatchet job (as others have said). Your trip will be mostly spent in the car with barely any time to enjoy yourselves.
Good luck!
Paule

A few suggestions:

Basque region- I would stay in San Sebastian, as it is my favorite of the places you mention (I have never been to Hondarribia) and do day trips. The traffic in and out of the city is not particularly horrible, so you don't lose a whole lot of time.

Cut out Santiago and Portugal. 7.5 hours is just wrong. That took my host parents 10 hours and they are Spaniards who know how to read the signs and had driven it before.

Do not base yourself out of Sevilla because the traffic in and out every day will add a lot of travel time for you. Also, Córdoba and Granada are great places to spend a night, especially if you have a car to take you somewhere the next day. Doing Sevilla, Córdoba and Granada in 2.5 days is a bad idea, as you won't see anything while everything passes you by.

You seem to be going for breadth without any depth, which is a perfectly valid way to travel, though I don't see the point. If you arrive in Marseille and leave from Barcelona, I would say to stay in those areas. The Basque country is doable within that, but adding Andalucía is a stretch and Portugal is crazy.

An anecdote to share: some Russian friends came to visit me in Boston once. Before they got there they sent me an itinerary that included: Boston, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Miami. I wrote back that they were dreaming and said Boston and New York were doable but that the others had to go. The response? "Well, what if we rent a car?" You guys should meet!

I haven't driven into northern Portugal from Spain for several years, but when we did (skipped Santiago on a similar itinerary that proved Michelin et al to be all wet) we found that the road to Bragancia went from okay on the Spanish side to 3/4 wide (with 1 1/4 wide trucks coming the other way) and straight went to pretzel. 5 1/2 hrs? Somebody's pulling your leg.

Thanks so much for the comments on driving times. I was taking Michelin times as real and will definitely have to revise this itinerary. Can anyone comment on the driving times I've allowed for the France part of the trip:
Marseille to Collioure 3h 15 min
Collioure to Carcassonne 1h 40 min
Carcassonne to Lourdes 2h 30 min
Lourdes to Sarlat 3h 35 min
Sarlat to St. Emillion 2 h
St Emillion to St. Jean de Luz 2h 30 m

Thanks so much!

Just use the viamichelin.com and the mappy.com sites for your mileage and driving times..you can do espress (toll) or other

I've used viamichelin for all these times but for my Spain/Portugal part of the trip several people have said they are grossly understated. ( 10 h instead of 7.5 fr Bilbao to Santiago?)That's why I was asking about the France portion.

ttt

Hi Cara,

Your driving times for France are OK.

The problem is that you are skipping some beautiful country.

How important is St. Emilion?

Are you sure you want to drive to Collioure (3:22 hr) on your first day?

You are skipping Aix, Avignon, Nimes and Montpellier.

If you must see Carcassone, wouldn't it be better to drive from there up to Sarlat or Beynac, via Albi, and then work your way down to Lourdes (if that is a must)?

You might find my trip report helpful:
http://fodors.com/forums/threadselec...p;tid=34676645

May 8 is VE day and you will absolutely need hotel reservations for around that time. I made the mistake of not having them and nearly had to sleep in my car.

Thanks, Ira, for all the tips. I read your trip report and it was very helpful.
Avignon etc. are not in the plans because we've done that area before.
We are actually arriving in Europe a week earlier (Belgium) and flying to Marseille on the 2nd to begin this portion of the trip.It's only a 1 1/2hr flight. That's why I'm not worried about the 3+ hour drive to Collioure that first day.
St Emillion is the route we chose from Sarlat etc. to the Basque Country because we are all red wine lovers and wanted to sample the Bordeaux and visit the vineyards. Would you recommend Cahteau de la Roques in Puisseguin instead of someplace in St. Emillion?
We are considering the Montmorency in Carcassonne or Hotel Les Ramparts inside the walls. Comments?
And would you suggest Sarlat (La Lanterne), Beynac (Hotel du Chateau or Bonnet) or Chateau de la Fleunie near Lascaux as a base for our time in this area?

I really appreciate everyone's comments and suggestions.

Does VE day affect all of France? And how many days around that date are affected?
Again, thank you, all.

San Sebastian is an incredible city, only an hour from Bilbao. I was in Villa Ravel (you can find it in www.donostihome.com, in the center of the city, 40 feet from the beach and a great spa, very nice indeed.

Though the viamichelin/mappy times are probably correct, they assume the driver never makes a wrong turn and knows the route. From my hard-learned personal exprience, you are going to make wrong turns. When you decide to pull over into a little town for lunch, it's not like going through the McD's drive-thru at the interchange. You'll spend time wandering around looking for the right place.

We now live by a rule that any given day's transition will be no more than 3 hours (drive time, train, plane, whatever). With stops, it will ievitably turn into 4. Not to mention, when driving it allows for unplanned stops if something appeals to us.

<i>Does VE day affect all of France? </i>

All but Vichy, I would imagine.

(sorry, I couldn't resist!)

I agree with everyone who says that there are too many places and too much driving on this itinerary. One other word of caution. I would certainly skip Lourdes - far too commercial and unattractive. In fact, as a former Catholic I found it deeply disturbing. Too many people taking advantage of too many other people! There are so many other beautiful places in France.